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Piquen' your interest

The smoke that wouldn’t go out

As if there wasn’t already a mile-long list of reasons to stop smoking, this week was evidence enough for even the most addicted of all puffers to kick the habit.

For many smokers the threat of lung cancer, emphysema, circulatory system problems, high blood pressure and killing innocent people with second-hand smoke isn’t enough to make them butt out.

But how about the fact that a small discarded cigarette could create a towering uncontrollable inferno, displace thousands of people from their homes, ruin livelihoods, and cost taxpayers millions of dollars in damage control?

Some of the more than 350 fires ravaging this parched province have been caused by human error.

That could be from an errant ash in a backyard bonfire. It could be from a spark out of the exhaust of some construction machinery. And it could also be from the simple flick of the wrist as someone tossed the end of their cigarette to the ground.

It’s an act as natural as brushing your teeth for some. But in B.C.’s current conditions, it could cause wholly unnatural results.

Now towns like Barriere, McLure, Louis Creek, Falkland and Rayleigh, names once as foreign to me as a the provinces in China, will be forever seared in my memory.

Take one of those Kamloops fires. The general story goes that someone crushed out his cigarette near the bush, turned his back, and when he looked around minutes later there was an uncontrollable blaze. If only we could travel back in time, put the smoke in an ashtray and grind it down to a pulp.

Of course, it’s not only the smokers. They’re just easy to blame.

It’s everyone who is careless. There is no room for error right now.

This weekend we set off camping, knowing there was a fire ban. We talked about how nice it would be to sit around the campfire, toasting marshmallows, throwing another log on the fire and keeping those damn persistent bugs at bay.

We weren’t ever seriously considering starting a fire, as nice as it would have been. The threat of being the morons who set the Coast Mountains on fire was enough to make us stick to our little stoves and continually spray on the Deet.

But, I’ll admit it, we thought about it.

Up until that point forest fires were just a natural part of summer life. But usually they happened far off in the bush, up north, out of sight and out of mind for this city girl.

You would never actually believe that you could start a forest fire on your own.

But when we got back to civilization on Sunday night it was a much different story.

I was with a family from the Kamloops area that evening as they stared at the news footage of the fires burning near their home. They watched in silence as the TV showed plumes of smoke and fire and total devastation.

And it was then and there that it finally hit home to me.

What do you say to a family as they watch their lives hang in the balance?

What do you say when the news comes out that the two major fires in the Kamloops area were caused by human error?

What do you say to people when they return to the place where their homes once stood, homes full of their furniture, their clothes, their pictures and their memories, and instead they find the charred remains of their lives?

To me it makes the bitter pill of the devastation so much harder to swallow when you realize it could have all been so easily prevented if only we were a little more careful.

If it was a flash of lightening striking the dry trees, well there’s only so much you can do about that. Mother Nature will run her course and will have her way regardless. But if it could have been stopped with a little more thought and effort on our part, it’s somehow harder to accept.

It really comes as no surprise that, despite the huge "No Fires" signs on the highway, despite the extensive news coverage, people in Whistler are still not being careful enough. Whistler firefighters were called out to a few illegal backyard fires recently. And once they get there the people usually claimed ignorance of the ban as their excuse for starting and stoking a fire in the midst of a tinderbox. I say there’s no excuse. Put out their fires, turn the fire hoses on them, douse them with some water and slap them with a huge fine.

Firefighters were also called out to three small fires that were traced back to, yep you guessed it, the end of a discarded cigarette.

Punish them the same way, I say. Put of their fire, turn the hoses on them and fine them.

It’s only dumb luck that spared us from what the Kamloops area has endured this past week.

Had the winds of fate been blowing in another direction, we too could have been evacuated from our homes, facing an uncertain future and returning to a barren wasteland.

What would we do if Premier Gordon Campbell was describing Whistler the same way he was talking about Louis Creek?

"It’s like a vacuum sucked the life out of the area," he said.

It’s easy to think we’re immune. This is Whistler after all.

Don’t be complacent about Wednesday’s sprinkling of water. That’s just a drop in the bucket. It may not look as dry around town but the forest floor is still ready to go at a moment’s notice.

There is no room for thoughtless human error.

As a reformed smoker it’s easy for me to pick on the smokers. But I don’t suppose for one minute that the threat of a cigarette butt bursting into flames would entice anyone to quit particularly when the threat to their own health isn’t enough.

But think about it. Would you want to be the one who tossed the cigarette that never went out?