Anybody wondering what is happening with the fire north of Carbonear or anywhere else in Newfoundland and Labrador should just go to FIRMS, NASA’s Fire Information for Resource Management System. It’s online and it’s free. You can get satellite images of anywhere on the planet.
You can search for a location, zoom in and zoom out, and download a still image of the screen. It’s not perfect but you can see active fires as well as areas already burned over.
The one at the head of this column is the so-called Kingston wildfire downloaded at 1815 hrs local, 11 August 2025.
That picture via FIRMS tells you more than John Hogan, John Haggie, Lisa Dempster, or Steve Crocker spouting jargon they do not understand themselves.
Take as a good example the obsession with telling us how big the fire is. Almost 5,000 square kilometres for the one that started near Kingston. No one can relate to that any more than than they can realize that the state of emergency declared over the weekend is for a far bigger swath of real estate on both the Conception Bay and the Trinity Bay side of the Bay de Verde Peninsula than they might imagine. Now you have pictures of both.
People on Facebook got the image above from a guy named Josef Stevens. There is no excuse for the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador’s gigantic communications apparatus that has so far failed to produce anything this simple and informative. Well, no excuse but we can understand it because over the past 20 years no one with the power - start with Danny, right down to John Hogan - cares to fix chronic failures like this in a crucial public service.
This image is the Paddy’s Pond fire downloaded at 1815 local, 11 Aug 25. People in Kilbride will now understand why they are choking on wood smoke.
Listen to the government’s information because there’s useful stuff in there under the fluff.
Listen to conventional media, especially outlets like VOCM. Like all local media, they are struggling to beat their way through the official government bafflegab to find out information that matters. They just manage to get it out to you in decent time.
And if you really want to stay on top of the fire, pay attention to Eddie Sheerr.
Swear to the God’s of news, if someone wanted to start a killer news outlet using cutting tech and attitudes, there are a handful of people who could do it all and Eddie is one of ‘em.
Stay safe, folks.
Expect better, vote for better, when John Hogan drops the writ (maybe two weeks from today).
