Big Canadian Forest Fire Will Test Theory of ‘Nuclear Winter’

Forestry officials gathered Friday to set 2 1/2 square miles of dead fir trees on fire as part of an experiment to help U.S. and Canadian scientists test the theory of a “nuclear winter.”

“It will embody some of the characteristics of the firestorm that will follow a nuclear blast,” said Andrew Forester, who brought the researchers together.

The experiment, which begins today, was timed to coincide with the 40th anniversary Aug. 6 of the American dropping of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.

Forester, who directed a Royal Society of Canada study on “Nuclear Winter and Associated Effects,” said the scientists would attempt to learn more about the effects of smoke in the atmosphere and how smoke and ash block out sunlight.

He said experiment will be the first test of the nuclear winter theory proposed in 1982 by Cornell University astronomer Carl Sagan and Richard Turco, a consultant with R&D; Associates of Marina del Rey, Calif. They suggested a nuclear war would create a blanket of smoke and ash, blocking out the sun and chilling the Earth.

Turco is among those planning to observe the experiment.

Copter Will Set Fire

In northern Ontario, a helicopter is to drop a napalm-like substance on the area near Chapleau, 400 miles north of Detroit, to set fire to thousands of fir trees killed by a budworm infestation that began in the 1960s.

Forester said he hopes when the blaze fans out, it will create a 20,000-foot convection column of smoke, ash and gas to simulate some effects of a nuclear explosion. He described the fire as a “partial representation of one aspect of a nuclear explosion” without the blast or radiation.

The helicopter was to carry a “flying drip torch,” moving in concentric circles to drop an oil-based substance on pre-selected spots--literally dropping fire on the forest.

High in the convection column, scientists expect to see a ring of ash that would filter down, said Brian Stocks of the forest fire research unit at the Canadian government’s Great Lakes Forest Research Center in Sault Ste. Marie. Above the ash, scientists expect gases and condensation that could trigger firestorms, Stocks said.