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NASA tests space technology on new fire shelters near Fort Providence Tuesday August 25 2015 15 ENVIRONMENT WILDFIRES Photos wanted for 2016 Fort Smith Pet Desk Calendar Filling up fast Get your pictures in soon Ifyouwouldliketohavephotosofyour petstakenarrangementscanbemade. Please call Chris at 872-5547. Becauseofthehighvolumeofrequests we are on a first come first in basis. Special consideration will be made for pets not in previous calendars. Please submit photos of living pets only. Thereisnofeetohavephotosinthecalendar. If you have any questions or need more information please call Chris at 872-5547 or email dewolfnorthwestel.net Deadline is August 31 This ad sponsored by the Northern Journal Please leave a message at 872-5543 for details. WESCLEAN NORTHERN SALES LTD. Ph 867 875-5100 Fax 867 875-5155 E-mail infowescleannwt.com web www.wescleannwt.com Avalon Cat Hair - long Size - medium Gender - female Avalon is a very loving and beautiful cat. She is spayed and is up-to-date with all her shots.If you think you have a home for a Avalon please call the shelter at 872-5543. Please leave a message at 872-5543 for details. WESCLEAN NORTHERN SALES LTD. Ph 867 875-5100 Fax 867 875-5155 E-mail infowescleannwt.com web www.wescleannwt.com Avalon Cat Hair - long Size - medium Gender - female Avalon is a very loving and beautiful cat. She is spayed and is up-to-date with all her shots.If you think you have a home for a Avalon please call the shelter at 872-5543. Please leave a message at 872-5543 for details. WESCLEAN NORTHERN SALES LTD. Ph 867 875-5100 Fax 867 875-5155 E-mail infowescleannwt.com web www.wescleannwt.com Avalon Cat Hair - long Size - medium Gender - female Avalon is a very loving and beautiful cat. She is spayed and is up-to-date with all her shots.If you think you have a home for a Avalon please call the shelter at 872-5543. SpayedNeutered Up-to-datewithroutineshots House trained GracieFemaleBaby Grey tabby Looking for a new home Heres Gracie. Shes the sweetest little kitten youll ever meet and shes so calm and relaxed. Give this sweet little baby kitty her forever home By DALI CARMICHAEL Engineers and researchers from NASA teamedupwithAmericanCanadianandBrit- ish partners earlier this summer to test out a new line of re shelters that use space tech- nology to keep reghters safe on the ground. Through late June and into early August the team stationed itself at the Canadian Bo- real Community FireSmart project CBCFS camp just north of Fort Providence where as many as eight of the new shelters were sub- jected to testing through a man-made re ig- nited by a trailer-mounted Dackermin Torch. According to NASA documents the re shelters called CHIEFS Convective Heat- ing Improvement for Emergency Fire Shel- ters are a joint mission between the NASA Langley Research Centre and the USDA For- est Service. They use materials drawn from a new exible heat shield NASA is developing for future planetary exploration missions in- cluding an outer layer consisting of a woven quartz fabric bonded to an aluminium lm. The NASA researchers were joined by members of NWT Environment and Natural Resources ENR Alberta Environment and Parks forestry research organization FPI In- novations and researchers from the Univer- sity of Alberta the UKs Swansea University and the U.S. Forest Service. The one thats in service today is some- thing called the New Generation shelter said University of Alberta adjunct professor Mark Ackermanwhohasbeenplayingwithrepro- fessionally for decades. Its a composite it has two layers to it. The outer layer is a silica cloth and aluminum foil and the inner layer is breglass and foil. Thats the one that the U.S. re service carries today theres about 200000 of them out there. While the current shelters have saved some lives they are not impenetrable to the forces of wildres. In 2013 a group of 19 reghters perished in an Arizona wildre when their shelters - a last-ditch attempt at survival - couldnt stand the heat. Because of the materials we use the outer skin is invariably aluminium foil Ackerman said.Itisanincrediblygoodreectorofthermal radiation.Thetroublewithitisithasamelting point thats lower than the gas temperatures inside a re which can reach 800 to 900C. It lastsforawhilebuteventuallyitsoftensmelts and the winds take it away. NASA researchers got wind of the tragedy and offered their services with the hopes of molding existing space technology to help those on Earth. Ackerman was limited in what information he could share regarding the results of the testing but said there were some improve- ments from the older tents. They were better than the new gen- eration fire shelter but Im still not sure that the conditions inside were surviv- able he said. Researchers will be returning North in September for more follow-up tests. The CHIEFS tents can only be used once surviving exposure to ames for 1.5 to three minutes depending on weather conditions. They weigh as much as a gallon of milk and are big enough for a single person to kneel in in an effort to combat issues of weight and bulk. Should the outcomes of follow-up tests satisfy the researchers NASA and the USDA Forest Service plan to release the shelters for use by reghters as soon as 2017. Not used in Canada Currently many Canadian wildre services do not use the shelters choosing instead to train staff on the ground to keep themselves out of harms way. Theyre a last-ditch resource said Larry Nixon a re science manager with ENR. The site where we do the burns is good for testing because the soil is actually fairly thin there but a lot of the sites we use up here - if youre out on the peat and whatnot - if its re- ally dry and youve got a lot of organics un- derneath you itll just come along and burn underneath. It kind of defeats the purpose. He noted that high costs - about 300- 400 per unit - and the extra weight of car- rying the shelters also makes them imprac- tical in the eld. Wed just rather keep our crews out of danger he said. That said Nixon appreciated the chance to work with the NASA researchers. Its a great opportunity for our crews to learn more about re behaviour he said. Two re crews from Fort Providence were privy to the NASA studies along with a host of other groups carrying out their own research on the use of solid stick re retardant appli- cators instead of foam measuring spotting distances for re embers testing re resistant cameras and sensors and measuring carbon and gas emissions from the res. Sovereignty exercise Operation Nanook underway in Fort Smith By DALI CARMICHAEL Citizens of Fort Smith crowded around the localairportFridayafternoonwaitinginantic- ipation as a C-130J Hercules airplane touched downinthecommunitytocarryoutoneexten- sionofOperationNanooktheannualnorthern military exercise in sovereignty. From Aug. 24 to 28 almost 100 Canadian Armed Forces CAF staff will be testing out the towns emergency plan staging a simula- tionwildreeventthatrequirestheevacuation of the community. TheGNWTwillbeleadingtheoperationwith assistance from the Canadian Army Immedi- ate Response Unit IRU Vanguard RCAF CC- 138 Public Safety Municipal and Community Affairs Environment and Natural Resources Parks Canada and Canadian Rangers of the Joint Task Force North. The scenarios will play out in the Tama- rack Court and Axehandle Hill areas on Aug. 24 and 25. Onthe26thCAFmemberswillbestationedat thereccentreregisteringvolunteerstopartici- pateinanevacuationexercisethefollowingday. Oncetheoperationiswrappeduplocalswill be invited to a community barbecue hosted at Riverside Park on Aug. 28 from 430 p.m. to 730p.m.Civilianswillhavetheopportunityto interactwithCAFpersonnelandviewdisplays of military equipment including the new C-19 rie soon to be used by Canadian Rangers. InadditiontothescenarioinFortSmithOp- erationNanookexercisesincludedresponsesto a simulation oil spill in Inuvik and Ulukhak- tok and a sabotage-based scenario in Inuvik Tuktoyaktuk and Sachs Harbour from Aug. 16 to Aug. 30. POLITICS MILITARY Cpt. Jillian Pare gives a group of curious residents a tour through a CAF Hercules plane Friday. PhotocourtesyofGNWTENR PhotoDaliCarmichael Researchers use a mounted Dackermin Torch to ignite a controlled re on the Canadian Boreal Community FireSmart project site near Fort Providence to test out new re shelters.