EVER SINCE humanity learned to harness the power of combustion, we have found it very useful.
Fire gave us heat and light, allowing us to exist comfortably in the night time and in colder climates.
We learned to cook our food with it, and that made our food more tasty and less likely to kill us.
Eventually, fire allowed us to power machines that took human potential to another level.
But before we introduced ourselves to fire, fire introduced itself to us.
Combustion, as we know, exists in nature even without our influence.
Thus, when the BC Wildfire Service investigates the fires that ravage the back country every summer, it classifies them as either human-caused or naturally-occurring.
Those natural wildfires, caused by either lightning strikes or spontaneous combustion, still happen with great frequency.
Many of the most destructive fires from last summer were ignited during a single lightning storm that ran roughshod through the Interior.
But human-caused fires are prevalent this year, too, just as they were last year.
The Elephant Hill fire reached nearly 200,000 hectares last summer, destroying dozens of homes in the process.
Already this year, we’re dealing with a fire at Tunkwa Lake that was sparked from human activity of one kind or another.
It may have been negligence, it may have been malicious or it may have been an honest mistake.
Whatever the case, all of us need to commit to being more careful with fire.
Climate scientists tell us the conditions for catastrophic fires are becoming more prevalent, and years like 2017 may become the new normal in the BC Interior.
We have spent much of human history trying to harness the power of fire, and naturally-occurring fires will present enough of a hazard to us every summer.
Let’s not let all of that accumulated skill and knowledge go completely to waste while our homes and businesses are already in the path of the flames.
