Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Those Scary Canadian Fire Fighters...!

So have you heard about the wildfire in southeastern BC? The smoke is so thick folks can't see. The National Post has an article on it here. Especially interesting is the following quote from Jeanne Rucker with the Forrestry Service:

"If the wind is blowing more towards the west, Manning Park could be threatened," said Rucker. "And if it goes the other way it will go into Cathedral Park and Snowy Mountain protected area.
"We've been watching it now for weeks, but we haven't had the approval or the authority from the U.S. government to go down there [across the border] and fight it. We've had to wait until it comes to the border before we can take any action."
Rucker said the U.S. finally gave permission late Saturday "to go in and perform certain action on that fire."


Ok - so this fire has been burning out of control for weeks. Headed to Canada. No reason for it to put itself out before it crossed to border. The US Forest Service has been too overwhelmed, undermanned, and all around busy to try and deal with it.

But the US "Officials" wouldn't let us cross the border to try and contain it. I suppose they were afraid that we'd send terrorists across the border disguised as fire fighters...

Good grief.