Are 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.
Earlier this week, around 14,000 people had been evacuated from their homes, pushed out by more than 200 wildfires.
And a growing chorus of experts are suggesting that wildfire summers may be here to stay.
Who among us remembers the summers here ever being this consistently hot this early? Add rapid winds, dry lands and perhaps an ill-timed spark from a campfire, and you have a recipe for disaster.
It’s easy to feel inoculated from wildfires in the Tri-Cities. It’s too urban here, we might say.
While the Tri-Cities fire departments are right to not sound alarm bells yet, we should 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.
