Is smoke and flame the new normal? After days of wildfires ravaging the B.C. Interior – and no end in sight – it’s starting to feel like it.
At press time, around 14,000 people had been evacuated from their homes, pushed out by about 200 wildfires currently scorching parts of the province.
And a growing chorus of experts is suggesting that wildfire summers may be here to stay.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise.
Who among us remembers the summers here ever being this, well, hot? Add rapid winds, dry lands and perhaps an ill-timed spark from a campfire, and you have a recipe for disaster.
But how we face the reality and chaos caused by wildfires is largely up to us.
So far, we feel encouraged by what we’re seeing around the province in the face of the fires.
The cities of Prince George, Kelowna and Kam-loops are opening their doors to people displaced by wildfire.
Every day, it seems, brings a new story about a citizen or a business who’s going above and beyond to help those who have been evacuated from fire zones.
And even after a tense election, outgoing and incoming premiers Christy Clark and John Horgan have been breaking bread in an effort to do what’s right.
It’s easy to feel inoculated from wildfires here in the seemingly safe confines of Burnaby. It’s too urban here, we might say.
And yet, is it really?
We have the forested beauty that is Burnaby Mountain and the woods around Burnaby Lake, to name but two pockets of wilderness right here in our own urban core.
Which means that we, too, have a duty to act responsibly. Call out those who might gingerly flick away a cigarette butt, disobey the fire ban or leave dry debris unattended in soaring temperatures.
We owe it to our fellow British Columbians to take all this seriously.
They certainly are.
– editorial courtesy of the North Shore News
