Wildfires stoked my barely docile anxiety
I think all our Villages and Communities alike need to start working together to enforce our homes and communities from the tree lines. Regardless of "jurisdiction" or who's "fault" it was. We're all living on the same highway, people.
Packing a "Go" back is horrifying, and makes it real. You're left wondering if everything in your home is as valuable as it feels, and the answer is always yes, I know that.
Then we should be putting all our community emergency plans somewhere accessible to members with no escape plan.
But what else can we do when you see the plume of smoke after reading the news about Ontario?
I have an old car that I can't afford to fix up so I'm without transport with elderly pets and a disabled brother at home, and I know I'm not an edge case, many of our community members don't have transportation or prepped go bags in the event of any emergency, and the smoke today reminded me just how vulnerable our lives are sitting between jurisdictions.
This is the closest I've ever seen the first since the one across the Skeena a few years ago, and it felt like there was no communication to the community until after the alerts were settled. I'm just worried after seeing such slow response times from other provincial govs that made Ontario's wildfire a jurisdiction issue until the Indigenous community only had minutes to leave.
Name and publicly shame all cigarette/joint smokers who think the wind from a moving vehicle is enough to extinguish a spark in a tinder forest. When a fire breaks out in that area, you got a digital trail of possible causes. Report your location to Wildfire BC that people are ignoring fire bans so they can plan Initial Attack Crews by risk instead of 18hrs after reporting! Find out who else would be stuck in the event of an emergency! Set up a carpool even if you don't like the neighbour all that much!
Find out who would happily drive through the fire and flames to keep picking up anyone stranded! I hate that I'm saying this at all, but what happened to neighbourhoods? They're burning up faster than we can replace the community fire shattered.
Just my thoughts that keep weighing on me this morning as I watch our mountains disappear behind smoke on this side of the river this time. I woke up yesterday morning feeling off, and now today I'm seeing why. Want a fun little existential exercise?
Look at all around you, and ask what you're willing to grab and go in the next five minutes.
Didn't mean to be a downer, but just not mentally feeling great today.
Have a thought you want to add? Sign the guestbook 💜
Consider helping my ease my worry a simple latte ☕, or checking out my Medium :)