Underground pipes could carry water to fires after winter ends
ADELBODEN, Switzerland — The mid-altitude Adelboden-Lenk ski area may be able to put its snowmaking equipment to work dousing forest fires when summer heat dries Alpine forests.
According to an Associated Press report by Hernán Muñoz, the resort’s roughly 200 kilometers (125 miles) of slopes span an altitude between 1,000 and 2,300 meters (3,280 and 7,545 feet). An estimated 70 percent of the snow on those slopes is currently made artificially — a figure that captures how unreliable natural snowfall has become in the region.
Snow cannons and lances make up the visible portion of the snowmaking network. Much of it, however, sits out of sight: dozens of kilometers of underground water pipes that the source notes could prove useful beyond the winter months as the risk of wildfires grows even in places such as Switzerland’s Adelboden-Lenk ski area.
The possibility comes as glaciers in Switzerland and across the Alps retreat rapidly. Snowfall in the region has become less frequent and less reliable over recent decades, shifts attributed to the impact of climate change.