I remember thinking last spring, when I was writing over several weeks on food security, that you might be wondering if I could write on anything else. And so I have the same thought now, as I embark on a third week of fire protection concern. But stay with me; this issue will pass, as they all do. Maybe into reality, maybe into obscurity.
This issue, however, is much more important than many; it deserves three or four, or ten, weeks of consideration. The unfortunate thing is that we don’t even know what it deserves unless catastrophic fire comes to our area, which, hopefully, it will not. But it seems to me that if it did, we should be prepared.
In that vein of thought, we know a few things.
One, most, or likely all, local areas are not prepared to deal, in any way, with forest fires.
Second, we know fires are on the increase.
Third, we know that, no matter how much provincial governments have the heart to deal with fires, it isn’t enough.
There is also one thing (and perhaps more) that we don’t know. We don’t know if local areas and local governments could play a role in dealing with fires. But in that regard we know another thing, and that is that if local areas don’t make an effort, they will certainly not be of any assistance and may end up being the victims of future fires.
So with all of that kicking around in the back of my head over the last couple of weeks, I have poked into the net a bit, just to try and figure out if local areas could play a role and, in particular, could our valley do so? Then, if the answers to those questions were positive, would there be someone who might be willing to take it on? And admittedly, if your mind thinks that all of this is nonsense, you may think that I’m barking up a tree that should be left alone, that it may just be a way to waste a bunch of taxpayers’ money.
I think, on the other hand, that it may be a way to save a bunch of taxpayers’ money if it could prevent a disastrous fire, and possibly even save some lives. You may have heard that a woman died in the Summerland fire in the last few days. It’s also easier for me to think we could do something because I’ve seen a lot of community things happen in our area over the last fifty years.
The Golden Kinsmen Club built and donated our curling rink years ago; many local residents, under the leadership of Roger Ross, built the Golden Golf Course. Golden went after, and got, the CP Repair Depot with a hundred or more jobs, with Fred Demmon being the quarterback in that effort, a task that went on for a couple of years or so. And there are many more. A community can do things if it makes an effort, and in this case, it would be a selfish effort since we would be trying to save our valley from fire.
So I wondered, could we, as a local community, play a role in this, knowing that we have in other issues?
I started with what do we have to work with?
I might have mentioned this last week, but one of the things we have to work with, it seems to me, is a natural water main running the full length of the valley, from Harrogate to Donald. Water mains are usually expensive pipes that are part of municipal water systems, but we have a natural pipeline which wouldn’t cost us a dime. What we don’t have is the ability to get it from the river to the areas where fires would be putting our homes and properties at risk.
So I thought that if we could just put some fire pump bases at several points along the river (somewhat similar to the gun bases from which avalanches are shot down in the winter in Rogers Pass) we could just shoot water to the fires. Well, that would be good if you could shoot water three, four or five miles from the river up the sides of mountains, but I didn’t know if that’s possible or not. So I asked Google if you could do that. And I ended up talking to a friend, or maybe a cousin, of Google’s whose initials are AI, and that in itself was interesting. It was just like talking to a real person. And it turns out, at least in my estimation, that AI is a smart dude. And friendly. It seemed to understand easily what I was interested in and offered solutions.
It first said that, oh sure, solutions are available which would provide protection against these kinds of fires, and that for an area of our size it would cost about $105 to $150 million dollars. So I told it that there wouldn’t be any system like that because we can’t afford that. So then it came back with another suggestion, saying that there are large pumps now that can pump through large ten- or twelve-inch hoses, at very rapid speeds, and that the hoses can be laid off reels from the back of a pickup truck at speeds of between one and three miles per hour. Considering that the fire in Parson two years ago was known to be in the area for several days, laying large pipe at a mile an hour isn’t too bad. So the idea would be to run water in pipes (large hoses) as close to the fire as possible, then put the nozzles on and fight the fire. Pretty standard firefighting stuff, except we have never seen water run in 12-inch hoses with huge amounts of water.
One of the things that AI impressed me with a lot was when I asked who in the firefighting industry (if there is such a thing) a community could go to to get advice on how to put all of this together in an area. I expected to be told to find a company that makes firefighting equipment and fire trucks, but I think its answer was much more brilliant than that. Its answer started out by telling me that those are the kinds of people that you don’t want to talk to. The people to talk to, it said, were oil patch people, open pit mining people, major marine ports, anyone who is in the business of having to move huge amounts of fluids in short spaces of time. “Those are the kind of people who specialize in moving massive volumes of water over raw terrain, and the people you want to talk to,” said AI.
‘Moving massive volumes of water over raw terrain.’ I like that phrase, since I think that is what we would want to do.
All of which sounds interesting.
But, again, at what cost?
Between $1.5 and $3 million, AI said.
Now hey, that’s a mighty lot less than a hundred million, and well within the ability of a population of our size to pay for. How do I know that? Well, let me just give you one comparison. We started the ski hill in 1986 for $1.2 million. That’s forty years ago. What would that equate to today? I asked Google. It said that $1.2 million in ’86 would be the same as $3.6 million today. And the ski hill was started only by the residents of Area ‘A’; the Town of Golden did not participate in the ski hill at its beginning.
Perhaps another number could be of interest. The tax base of the town is now $1.21 billion and the tax base of Area ‘A’ is $1.74 billion, for a total of $2.95 billion. Those numbers both include the value of land, which would not be destroyed by fire, but a fire would most likely reduce the value of land as well.
AI had another interesting thought. It said that the federal and provincial governments would very possibly be interested in contributing some dollars to a project like this, since if it were successful it would set a pattern for other communities to follow. And, of course, we in Golden know that is true since when we started the Area ‘A’ television system in about 1984, with a referendum amount of $150,000, the BC government gave us another $100,000 to enhance the system.
So if something that could protect us from catastrophic loss could be obtained for an amount between $1 and $3 million, it could be a very good investment. And it would be an especially good investment if it saved some lives.
There are, of course, many more details than what you have seen here. But I think there is enough here to give you an idea. And the main idea is this: the evidence is clear that catastrophic fires are increasing in BC, and the provincial efforts to prevent or contain them is overwhelmed. We need to move forest fire fighting to a new level. And we can, if we will take up the challenge, and it may save our community in the future. Can there be anything more important for any level of government than to protect its people?
So what do you think?
Should we look into it a bit more? Or should we throw it in the file of ‘Stupid Ideas?’
The other question is this. If it is worthy of some more consideration, would you quarterback it? And it would seem to me that it would have to be done by a Town of Golden Mayor or Councillor or Area ‘A’ Regional District Director. Which is why I have brought it up now with the local elections coming up in September.
