I really thought I was done writing about fire. I also really wanted to avoid writing about me doing something stupid for once. Alas, I seem to have no choice in the matter.
This past Thursday, some friends came to visit and I had gotten some nice pumpkin seed and cranberry bread at a local bakery. I warmed it up in the oven and, with there seemingly always being one nearby, I grabbed a magically still clean receiving blanket off the counter and took the bread out.
It wasn’t long before my wife was, with surprising calm, informing me that the blanket I was holding had caught fire. Despite this incident, I was still going to leave the topic of fire alone. However, today I came to a stunning revelation. This morning as I was driving through Lac la Hache and past my mom’s house, a great billowing tower of smoke rose from the property.
It could have easily mistaken for the type of fire people set when stuck on a deserted island (without any internet at the house, perhaps that is what it was). I probably should have stopped and checked what was going on, but on the other hand, the fact that that thought didn’t occur to me until literally just now only reinforces the point I’m about to make.
I stopped in on my way home from work, having completely forgotten about the fire, and had some tea. As the last rays of sunshine set the sky ablaze with bright reds, my mom brought up that she’d been burning things. She’s been trying to get the house ready to sell, mowed the lawn and decided to burn the cut grass in the firepit. Hence the billowing tower of fire.
However, she also brought up that she’d been burning tiny bits that had started popping up on the gravel driveway (yes easily less than 0.2 hectares as per the current fire ban). Being anything but an expert grass burner, she was walking around with a small jerrycan lighting the odd piece of grass that had dared to raise its head where it ought not.
According to my mom, things were going pretty well until in a “greatest home videos” style mishap, the jerrycan caught fire. Now holding a burning jerrycan, she threw it onto a patch of gravel where she let it burn out.
Now the real takeaway from all of this is that none of my fiery blunders are my fault; clearly, it is either a hereditary trait, in which case I better start watching my son, or it’s my mother’s fault for not teaching me better fire safety, in which case we should be in the clear for a while as my wife has made sure she is lighting the last few remaining fires of the spring season.