After another ear-jarring, pet-terrorizing, harrowing day and late evening experiencing wartime noise levels and cascading fireballs filtering through the tall trees in our mature forested east Vancouver neighborhood, I’m amazed we escaped incineration considering the tinder-dry conditions, heat and the massive volume of large aerial ordnance exploding in the trees all around us. As always, four garden hoses were unrolled and ready in their inadequacy as we guarded our home.
The trees were smaller when we moved here in 1971. Now, the dense stands of mature firs and cedars tower 120 feet or more over our shrubbery-surrounded homes. They stretch in a wide swath from Mill Plain north to 18th Street, like many neighborhoods in the Vancouver area. Don’t folks know what happens when fire crowns into the treetops? With two more dry months ahead, this year’s reported $824,500 damage could just be a beginning as leftover fireworks and pyromaniacs unite.
Do lives have to be lost first before reason trumps insanity? Donate instead to the truly spectacular professional aerials at the Fort.
Donald Baiar
Vancouver