A brush fire started last night on Burnaby Mountain as tinder-dry conditions continued in an unseasonably hot May. 11.
Burnaby firefighters had to slog through the forest with their equipment before they could find the location because there was no access for fire trucks. The fire was located on the north side of Burnaby Mountain Pkwy near Centennial Way.
The fire was put out quickly – as usual, the Burnaby Fire Department gets the job done.
But that doesn’t help me sleep at night.
You see, I live on Burnaby Mountain and while it’s wonderful and bucolic, it’s also like living on top of a pile of kindling – just waiting for a match to be lit.
Yes, I know, I chose to move up there. I get that. But that doesn’t mean I can’t feel concerned. No cause of the fire has been determined yet for the fire, but I’m wondering if it’s human caused, like a discarded cigarette.
What I’m trying to say is we all need to be more cautious during these dry conditions. At the end of March, during another unseasonably hot and dry stretch, an idiot – or idiots because they seem to run in packs – set off some fireworks at Deer Lake - the likely cause of a large brush fire that the NOW wrote about.
Society has long been filled with dumb and irresponsible people, but that bad behaviour is even more dangerous now with climate change. Here in B.C., and even in rainy Metro Vancouver, we’re seeing temperature records fall on a regular basis and our land drying up.
That’s not just some coincidence.
Things are getting worse. Our country needs to do more to fight climate change or we won’t have a country left to live in.
We haven’t even gotten to summer yet. Remember last summer with all of the horrible air quality that dragged on week after week? Stop thinking that’s just a one-off.
Our country is seeing mass flooding and record forest fires. That isn’t just some fluke.
You can follow Chris Campbell on Twitter @shinebox44.
