Editor:
That a prescribed burn in Banff National Park recently got out of control during a near-record early May heatwave should give us all pause.
Think of it this way. Canmore is just one busy and crowded not-so-little town situated on the Trans-Canada Highway and our nation’s most important rail line. On one hand, it is located at the bottom of a trough into which all snowmelt and rainfall pours, which as extreme weather events become more common greatly increases, as we have seen with the risk of flooding.
On the other hand, it also happens to be situated in the bottom of a stone cauldron so big you could roll the moon in it, and that cauldron is filled to the brim all summer with dry firewood.
What could possibly go wrong? Plenty, as we have seen. It is time we woke up here to our global situation before we are consumed by it.
Bob Sandford,
Canmore
