[alfa] Wildfires here too this summer

[C M Smith <cmsmith@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

For those suffering in California you should know that we Western Canadians 
had  a really bad summer this year also. Many luxury homes in the suburbs 
of one of BC's larger interior cities went up in flames when a Mountain 
Park fire burst out of control. A whole village burned in central BC. One 
of Alberta's mountain towns was threatened with destruction for several 
weeks finally saved by aggressive and skilled firefighting and rainfall.  I 
hope and trust our firefighters are down there helping out in California 
now, they got lots of experience here this summer. I know we got help from 
US wildfire fighters this summer.

One positive result is the forestry managers are now seriously looking at 
underbrush control and controlled burns (one controlled burn became an 
uncontrolled burn near our city this summer!). It is true that over 
suppression of wildfire has increased the hazard over the last decades of 
successful fire control. In Canada we have unbelievably vast forests with 
very little access so when a fire gets out of control massive areas can be 
burned with no reasonable prospect of control let alone putting out the 
fire. One casualty was a series of very old wooden railroad trestles that 
had been converted to a mountain biking trail in combination with the old 
railroad bed. At today's costs these were an irreplaceable investment 
handed down from our earlier generations. The trestles were inaccessible 
from the ground as the only access was along the old railbed. Aerial 
bombardment with water and fire retardant was insufficient and we lost 
around a dozen structures worth millions of dollars in todays currency.

We lost no lives however, and loss of life is very hard to accept. One 
minor advantage of our low population density, and perhaps our familiarity 
with this risk which is present to some degree every summer in our 
extensive forests. I think in 1996 Alberta lost more forest up North than 
in any previous forest fire season anywhere in North America, a staggering 
amount of (unpopulated) forest was burnt, worse than BC this year.

As for choosing between the GTV6 and the 164, what a choice! Thankfully 
both cars survived as did all the people involved.

Pray for rain and no wind.


Michael Smith
White 1991 164L
Original owner
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