BC Wildfires
24 août 2018 13:19 Laisser vos pensées
BC is on fire if you haven’t noticed. Over 500 fires are raging across the province and it is only getting worse. The area in which I live, West Quesnel, was recently on evacuation alert. This means we had to be ready to evacuate at a moment’s notice. The fire that was threatening the evacuation was the Narcosli creek fire. As a first-time resident of the Cariboo area, I was impressed by the response rate of fire crews. Within a day there were over 100 firefighters and 5 helicopters, with tens of pieces of heavy equipment digging fire guards and attempting to contain the fire. This fire ballooned from 10 hectares to 1200 hectares overnight and by the end of the second day it was over 3000 hectares. Luckily the wind complied, and it didn’t grow much after that.
Seeing the community come together like this really impressed me. I saw people honking from their cars with gratitude for firefighters, and social media posts offering to transport farm animals. I can only speculate but the fires of last year must have everyone a little more prepared. After all, it only takes a gust of wind to completely shift the outlook of a fire. On Friday August 18th, my lunch break coincided with what can only be described as a smoke eclipse. Every second that went by made the sky darker and darker until the afternoon sky was indistinguishable from night time.
It was like watching a time lapse video in real life. Even though the fires still burn, Quesnel is safe for now. Other communities, especially remote communities are still in very real danger.
On a lighter note, I took some time last weekend to visit Barkerville. Barkerville is a historic gold mining town that was restored as a tourist attraction and museum. The drive was about an hour long and I was treated to blue skies when I got there, a welcome sight after the last few weeks. I was impressed by the level of detail in the restorations. There were stage coach rides, every employee was dressed in period accurate clothing. I was most impressed by how the towns deep Chinese roots were appropriately represented. If you have the time and patience, you could probably spend two days exploring every house and exhibit that Barkerville has to offer. On the way back, I stopped at a taco stand in Wells recommended to me by my friends. It was an all-round solid taco stand, but what really made it stand out was their array of hot sauces, including the infamous Blair’s Mega Death Sauce which I hastily passed on. after picking a much, much, milder sauce I headed home.
Finally, being on what seems to be the tail end of the fires, I am also coming up on the tail end of this internship. It has been business as usual for the last few weeks. Still working on an extended project that is starting to wrap up, still soaking up as much knowledge as possible from industry veterans, still haven’t explored the woods operations on the invite of my friends, and still haven’t spent enough time to write about the sawmill in my blogs. When I return to UBC I am giving a presentation on my internship to my fellow co-op students. This really pushed me to reflect on what I learned and the skills I acquired. It also helped me to learn how to quantify my contributions. I am going to miss it here, I am grateful for the lessons and insights given to me by my supervisors and colleagues, further so I am going to miss Quesnel and all the not so small-town features that it has to offer.