To the editor:
The fire season is finally coming to an end and hopefully we never have another like this one.
My hope is that we can take something positive from it all and use it as a learning experience. It would be very easy to rant on and on about how and why the Elephant Hill fire got to be the size it was but taking a lesson from it would be a heck of a lot more beneficial. Next summer could very easily be hot and dry like this one due to the weather cycle we’re in. It’s time that we become proactive and do as much as we can to preserve what we have left in both resource value and the visual value of our landscapes.
A lake like Lac la Hache could be easily protected from a visual decimation as well as having the homeowners on the west side protected.
Starting at Wright Station Road the lake is surrounded on the west side by a road that borders the lake all the way around to Caverly Road. A two hundred meter strip could be taken off and the ground fuel removed by piling and burning during the winter on the west side of the road from Wright Station and Helena Lake to Caverly Road.
Let this regenerate into grass for cattle and aspen for wildlife. The road will stop a grass fire because of the fact that a fire on the ground can be fought and one in the trees is pretty much (as we’ve found out) a lost cause.
The time to put a fire guard in is before the fire happens and not after. This guard would be of no cost to the government because of the stumpage fees generated from logging it off.
As far as protecting the face of the lake maybe revenue could be put into the Lac la Hache fire department to put a boat together with a fire pump for fast response. I understand the Greeny Lake Fire Department did this summer and saved a lake from disaster. Hats off to proactivity.
Ross Curry
108 Mile Ranch