It may not seem like it, given that we just experienced a mid-spring blizzard that made it feel like winter all over again, but it won’t be long before forest fires and grass fires are back in the news with more regularity, so it’s a good thing that the City of Thompson has become the first community in the province to complete its Community Wildfire Preparation Plan.
While some of the plan will likely not be of much interest to the general public since it deals with provincial and municipal government agencies and their roles in preparing for a wildfire approaching the city, along with outside organizations like the Canadian Red Cross, the part that deals with wildfire mitigation will be of interest to more people, particularly property owners and more particularly property owners on the tree line, who are more likely to have a wildfire approach their home or business than those located in interior portions of the city.
Wherever your home or business is located, however, certain precautions will have universal application. Keeping piles of wood away from your home or garage and trimming vegetation on the non-property side of your fence if you aren’t bordered by another home will help reduce the likelihood that, if a fire does approach your home, your fence or garage or the house itself will catch fire and burn down.
It isn’t often that forest fires approach Thompson that closely, though we are often beset by smoke from some, which may be as far away as the Saskatchewan-Manitoba boundary to the west and the Manitoba-Ontario boundary to the southeast. The Burntwood River on the north side of the city provides some protection from fires in that direction, but the reality is that there is only one way out of the city regardless of whether you are heading north or south and there isn’t really anywhere that Thompsonites could evacuate to the north.
What’s more, forest fires aren’t the only threat to the city’s residents and their property. The most recent fire to threaten potential evacuation of some Thompson residents was not a lightning strike forest fire that grew to immense size and travelled toward the city but one that was started, maybe accidentally, perhaps on purpose, in the woods outside of Eastwood and took more than 12 hours to put out, even with the assistance of outside agencies like Manitoba Hydro, which provided helicopter support to Thompson Fire & Emergency Services crews battling the blaze. Many homeowners can probably relate their own experiences of having fires, sometimes from carelessly discarded cigarettes, other times from children and youth playing with matches and lighters, burn their fence or light their garage on fire or blacken their lawn, particularly in the late spring and early summer, when the ground has dried out but vegetation has not yet turned green and started growing again after having been buried under a blanket of snow for most of the previous half-year or so.
Being prepared is never a bad thing and one place people can start is by having a few days’ worth of water and perishable food as well as other emergency supplies like a change of clothes and a can opener, some blankets, et cetera. Fires aren’t the only threats to safety we have to deal with. Just last week, the Canadian Red Cross had to transport thousands of litres of bottled water to Shamattawa to help residents there with cooking and drinking water needs when their water treatment plant broke down. The weekend snow in Thompson caused temporary power outages, including one that affected our water treatment plant. We might do well to take a page from the city’s book and analyze how prepared we are ourselves for a fire or an extended power outage and take steps to address any deficiencies. The hope is always that the plan or emergency stash of supplies will never need to be pressed into service, but it is also prudent to plan for the worst-case scenario before it appears on the horizon so you don’t find yourself scrambling on a Friday afternoon to track down some bottled water, as many had to when a boil water advisory was imposed in Thompson in early November.
