Darkness South, Fire North

The lights are out down in L.A. Not the first time they've seen that down there. All of downtown L.A. is affected including the electrical equivalent of some 1.8 million households.

Crisis and calamity are also afflicting our neighbors to the north at this hour. Wildfires outside of Vancouver, BC are covering areas of the city in a smokey haze. Unfortunately it is the ecologically important and fragile Burns Bog area just outside of the city that's currently on fire.

From the Vancouver Sun:

"Burns Bog has long been considered the lungs of the Lower Mainland. It helps contribute to good air quality most of the time,'' he said at the legislature in Victoria. ``So we're working very hard with the associated agencies to make sure the fire is put out. ... I'm confident that, in a reasonable period of time, we will get that fire under control and put out.'

Burns Bog is a forested area that provides habitat to rare plants and animals. Last year, the federal, provincial and local governments came to an agreement that allowed a large piece of it to be protected as an Ecological Conservancy Area.'

The fire started in an area of the bog where workers were purposefully lowering the water table to protect against litigious neighbors in the event of a flood and escaped fire breaks earlier today. Firefighters there are confident that things will be contained by later today, but in the meantime a fine-particulate smoke is blowing through the city and affecting those with respiratory ailments. The smoke could continue for the next several days.

The peat bog is heralded by environmentalists as one of the largest undeveloped land masses within a major metro area in North America.