Mark My Words

I recently read a post from D.B. Stewart about fire hydrants. In it, he wrote, Unless there’s one in your front yard, I bet you (like me) may struggle to pinpoint where exactly they are in your neighbourhood. 

He’s not wrong! (Except for adding a “u” to neighborhood, but the guy’s Canadian, so we’ll forgive him that minor transgression.)

“Hey, babe,” I asked Tara. “Where’s our nearest fire hydrant?”
“Good question,” she replied. “I have no idea.”

Turns out our nearest fire hydrant is nowhere. I learned this after scoping out our neighborhood and finding zero, zip, nada hydrants. Honestly, I’d never even given this a second thought before. Fire hydrants are something I’ve always just taken for granted; it had never occurred to me that owning a rural (-ish; the grocery store is a five-minute drive away) property came with trade-offs like this. Stands to reason, given that we get our water from a well. This newfound realization is a tad disconcerting, given the fact that I nearly burned down the yard last weekend.

After spending Saturday afternoon downtown, we got home around 7 p.m. Pretty bushed; it had been a long day.

“We should sit around the fire pit!” I suggested to Tara.
“Great idea,” she said, plopping onto a comfy recliner in the basement. “Let me just rest my eyes for a few minutes.”

I know too well that rest my eyes is code for I’m about to crash hard. Sure enough, my wife was asleep within seconds. Not to be deterred, I went into the backyard, gathered a bunch of wood, and started a fire myself. Within minutes, flames were licking skyward, the wood crackling and popping nicely.

The fire was so good and hot, I decided to take advantage by burning as much debris from our wood pile as I could. We had a mountain’s worth of limbs and branches in one corner, thanks to last month’s storms and a general laziness on my part. How else to explain the brittle, dried-out Christmas tree at the bottom of the pile?

So, I began scooping up armfuls of sticks and twigs and logs and an entire Christmas tree and tossing them onto the ever-growing bonfire. In the past, I’ve broken the branches down by hand and by hatchet, but I was tired and sore after a long day, and that extra manual labor seemed unnecessary. The fire was raging, making quick work of the woody debris; as dusk fell, those flames were shooting twelve to fifteen feet into the air. It was exhilarating! Two hours later, I had burned through the whole enormous pile. I was quite proud of myself.

…until Sunday morning, when I realized I’d gotten maybe a little too carried away feeding the flames. Between the ring of ash around the fire pit, the scorched grass, and–most concerning of all–the singed leaves on our juneberry tree, it appears the fire was a little hotter, the flames a bit taller, than I’d realized.

Oops.

Needless to say, you can understand why a lack of fire hydrants might be concerning. What happens if somebody’s house (or yard, ahem) catches on fire ’round these parts? Are we supposed to go door-to-door and form a bucket brigade with our neighbors? It doesn’t help that we’ve had almost no rain this month and are rapidly heading toward a drought.

My coworker Randy was a volunteer firefighter for three years, so I reached out to him with this “hypothetical” situation. I asked him what would happen if some dumbass out in the sticks accidentally set his property ablaze and there were no hydrants.

They have tanker trucks, he responded. They bring their own water. They have drop tanks so they unload the water into the big foldable tank and head back to the closest water source (could be lake/pond, hydrant, or station). Multiple tankers running if needed.

And he forwarded these pics:

Which did offer momentary comfort. Until he shared a story about how a house literally across the street from the fire department burned to the ground. Seems like it would take more than a few minutes to get that portable tank set up and filled, right?

So, in the interest of safety, I’ve made a new vow: NO MORE BONFIRES. Nothing but tiny little fires for this guy. The kind that are just flame-y enough to toast marshmallows or roast weenies, not burn up your grass and ignite the surrounding forest canopy.

You bring the buns, I’ll supply the dogs. Deal?