It is becoming obvious that there is something seriously wrong at the Ministry of Forests with regards to the current fire situation.
A large part of the problem apparently lies in mismanagement causing delay.
– Tale after tale of unacceptable delay, “watching the fire” burn until it gets too big to fight,
– Firefighters not showing up to fight fire until the middle of the day (the worst and most difficult time) because they are stuck in hours of useless and redundant safety meetings,
– and lack of timely response reflects incredibly poorly on the current administration…. it’s even worse than last year.
We would be a lot better off if the ministry of forests was yanked, and we let the loggers put the fires out as they used to do with great skill, and local knowledge of winds and effective forest fire fighting techniques.
The government’s low value “firefighting course” seems to get in the way and stop the job from getting done by disqualifying people who have experience in putting out real fires. Instead, prospective firefighters are forced to listen to the drivel of dweebs who have never fought a real fire.
The time to put a fire out is when it’s first started, not after it’s grown to 1,000 hectares. Current delays in authorizations to fight [for days in many cases] allow the fires to get out of control. Helicopters should be in the air immediately after every lightning storm with orders to dump on first sight of smoke. This would save millions.
I think we can all understand that if the fire department showed up at your house because it was on fire and they sat there and watched it burn (oh, we’re watching the fire) for a couple of hours before pretending to fight it [too little – too late] no-one would be happy. So when the ministry delays authorizations for days at a time, destroying thousands of hectares and peoples homes in the meantime, it is understandable that people are upset.
Fires don’t put themselves out if someone sits on their hands and watches them, you have to get your hands dirty and shut it down quickly before it gets out of hand.
Consider the impact on the tourism industry, the fishing industry, the logging industry…Not to mention the hazard to people’s health and homes.
Instead of tying firefighters’ hands behind their backs, the ministry needs to get out of the way and let them get the job done. Fighting fires promptly would probably cost a lot less than the mess we have now.
Karle H. Granlund
