The fire season is now well and truly upon us.
And already Cowichan has had a brush fire. We are incredibly fortunate to have the dedicated Shawnigan Lake Fire Department who put out the blaze on West Shawnigan Lake Road earlier this week within a matter of hours. Many communities haven’t been so lucky (a fire continues to burn as close as the Nanaimo area). Last week evacuation alerts and orders began for several communities in the B.C. Interior, which was devastated by catastrophic fires last summer.
But back to Cowichan’s brush blaze. The most disheartening thing is that it was likely caused by a carelessly discarded cigarette butt. How many times do people have to be warned before they quit doing something so irresponsible as tossing their cigarette end out of the car window and onto the tinder dry roadside grass? Or do they just not care that they could be causing a devastating fire in their wake, as long as they can continue to drive on unimpeded?
We’ve also seen far too many cigarette ends discarded in bark mulch beside sidewalks and parking lots of late. This material may be used to try to keep moisture in the ground for the landscaping, but this time of year it is just waiting to smoulder into a small fire with application of a fire source, and any breeze or lack of notice can rapidly turn such a thing into a conflagration.
In the Interior storms brought dry lightning to the area, sparking wildfires nobody can prevent. It’s incredibly frustrating to have to expend resources to fight fires caused by sheer carelessness at the same time.
In the Cowichan Lake area, where people live on the edge of and actually in the woods that surround the communities, the danger of fire is as close as that beautiful wilderness that defines the place.
A campfire ban is now in effect for our entire region, and we hope people will heed the prohibition. They’re likely to do so at campsites where there are plenty of people around to take them to task if they try to light a flame, but the most concerning are those out in the bush. Some folks feel that if they are out of sight they can do whatever they like.
All it takes is a spark landing in the wrong place. Having some flames to roast some marshmallows isn’t worth it.
