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), though none have so far been hit with the catastrophic fires that raged last summer for months in the B.C. Interior.
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.
While the Interior watches nervously as storms bring lightning to their area, sparking wildfires nobody can prevent, it’s incredibly frustrating to have to expend resources to fight fires caused by sheer carelessness.
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, but the most concerning are those out in the bush.
All it takes is a spark landing in the wrong place. Having some flames to roast some marshmallows isn’t worth it.