The Editor,
I am extremely disappointed with the government of B.C. with respect to how they have been handling the fires in the province and felt the urge to speak up to express my dissatisfaction.
I came to Canada from Bogota, Colombia, and I know what it is like to live in a city that has a lot of pollution, but I have never in my life seen such bad air quality as what I have experienced in the last few days.
I am seriously surprised to see that there are currently over 500 active fires in the province. Whoever has let the situation get this far has failed and we are now all suffering because of it.
I can’t stop thinking about the consequences that this will have on my two-year-old boy and our new baby that is on the way.
Actually, Francisco, my baby boy, was already exposed to quite a bit of smoke last year as well, under the same kind of circumstances.
I am very surprised that with the modern resource allocation and optimization techniques available, better decisions are not being made.
I can’t believe there aren’t better optimization frameworks that could help to determine what fires should be priority, what fires to control first and thus prevent fire situations getting this bad.
I can’t stress enough the urgency that the province should have to consider changing the policies and guidelines that have been used so far to control wildfires. It’s been two consecutive years with very negative results.
Clearly, they have not worked. I encourage the province to reconsider the resources that have been allocated for wildfire control and to realize that letting the air quality get so low shouldn’t be allowed.
Maria Rodriguez
Port Coquitlam
