Editor:
“When the fire comes, it won’t be a wall of flame. It will be a rain of embers.”
This isn’t a quote from the Old Testament, these are the words of Gord Wagstaff – the very professional firefighter who led the FireSmart team that answered an invitation to view our home last month.
The Jasper fire prompted my wife to action concerning the dense tree growth in our backyard and the adjoining wildlife corridor. The visit was invaluable. It’s not the trees, it’s the embers. Remove rubber or hemp doormats, keep gutters clean, no dry twigs or pine needles should linger in nooks and crannies where the wind dropped them – the same wind will bring embers to the same place.
Air intakes need 1/8 steel mesh to prevent sparks from being drawn into the house, and mulching near a building invites disaster. Evacuation orders empty the neighbourhood, so the potted plants blooming by your front door will be unwatered for days in the hottest weather. Embers love that.
There was much more, of course, but while your readers call on Parks Canada, the federal government and the UCP to do more, the fact is that we can and must look to ourselves and our neighbours to protect Canmore.
Every property owner here will benefit from a FireSmart visit. Every neighbourhood can be stronger with better odds of a good outcome when fire comes if we work together with Gord and his fellow firefighters. They know their stuff, but we must ask.
An illegal camper, a cigarette from a vehicle, a wire knocked down by a branch: all can start a fire right now, right here. And yet, oddly, new houses near us are freshly landscaped with truckloads of mulch, rubber welcome mats are in place and new plastic furniture sits near wood-trimmed patio doors.
Let’s change this picture to protect our town, our neighbours and ourselves.
James McPherson,
Canmore
