Tagged: saskatchewan wildfires
Saskatchewan: Still on Fire
The wildfires that are raging throughout Western Canada haven’t really let up. In fact, a little bit north of where I am they’re even worse as more and more people are being evacuated, particularly from the remote reserves. It’s not pretty but I don’t really expect the fires to come down this far south. We’re pretty dry down here but at the same time we’ve been getting a bit of rain here and there so we should be fine. The only real downside is the continuing smoke. Today it was so bad you can barely see more than a couple hundred yards when you can normally see almost a kilometre in the distance because we’re pretty flat around here.
My boss and I were commiserating as fellow asthmatics about the air quality. A customer overheard us and said, “Yeah that must be tough. How do you deal with it?”
“Take more drugs.” We said this at pretty much the same time so you know how bad it’s been.
Hopefully Saskatchewan gets a bit of a respite and all those firefighters they’ve called in are able to beat the fires back before they do any further damage. It’s funny in a way because the fires have been raging since for a couple of weeks but the media hadn’t been able to muster the requisite number of f**ks in order to care until the fires affected the air quality in Saskatoon and Regina. Yep, we’re not all that far north of CTV and CBC stations (half a day’s drive) but they really can’t be bothered to care until it personally affects them and/or they can no longer ignore the story because other people are pointing out that half the province is currently on fire.
Journalism at its finest.
Lazy Sundays: Wildfires
One of the things I’ve never really had to worry about too much in my area of Saskatchewan was wildfires. For the past few years we’ve had consistent rain and heavy snowfall that prevented these sorts of things from cropping up. Not this year, however. This year there was very little snowfall and there’s been even less rain while the temperatures are pushing the mid-30s Celsius. So there are wildfires all over Saskatchewan, particularly here in the north.
I’m in no danger from the wildfires currently and they are still several hours north of where I am. The only way these things really affect my life is with the smoke coming down on the wind. It has settled down all over Saskatchewan and the air quality is very poor, along with the visibility. My asthma isn’t exactly the best at the moment but I’m making do.
I just hope that the fires don’t do too much damage where they currently are and that the evacuees (some of them are even staying in my community) can return to their homes soon. A little rain would be nice right now.