Wildfire

I have tried to keep the focus of my blog on cooking and cleaning.  I do not, well not very often, stray from topics that do not relate immediately to myself, my home, or my wife.  However, today marks two weeks since raging wildfires have displaced thousands of people British Columbia forced the province to call a state of emergency.

I decided to write this post this morning after debating it in my head since Monday.  Part of the reason I ended up writing it is because today, for the first time in a few days, the smoke hanging over the city had thinned out, if that is the right term, enough to open the windows and get some air into our apartment.

This year, since April, there have been 718 wildfires in British Columbia which have consumed 410,203 hectares.  Twenty one of these fires were discovered since the 19th of the month.  These fires have resulted in 43,000 people being forced to evacuate their homes.

Sunshine Village, a popular Rocky Mountain resort in Banff National Park is being cleared of guests so that crews can fight a wildfire raging about 2 1/2 kilometres.  A human-caused wildfire is currently burning about five kilometres east of Tete Jaune Cache, near Mount Robson Provincial Park.  A wildfire burning in the Maligne Valley area near Jasper National Park’s Excelsior Creek held steady at 5,000 hectares in size Friday.

The firefighters and those working to support them in British Columbia need our prayers and encouragement as they try to prevent another tragedy like Fort MacMurray from occurring.  My wife was at the evacuation center last year working to support the people who lost everything in that fire. This year, our son recently started working for the City of Prince George and one of his first assignments was helping set up and man the evacuation center.