Only you can prevent forest fires

Did you listen to Smokey the Bear?

He wasn’t just talking to children; he was talking to you there, mister, flicking your cigarette ashes out of the car, lighting fireworks to enjoy their exploding lights and sounds, mowing the lawn because it needs mowing.

I think many Americans have a bit of fire-related Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from the fires in recent years.

Has anyone else been on evacuation notice recently? Has anyone else had a vacation marred by smoke? Decided not to go out on the boat because you couldn’t breath? Felt like locking yourself inside in August because outside was just too smokey and everything had an eerie yellow hue?

I know I’m not alone in this.

Having grown up here since I was 11 in 2001, and in Eastern Washington all of my life, I remember clear August months. I remember not being on evacuation notice. I remember not watching fires crawl up and down the hills I can see from my porch.

It’s been, I’m gonna say, in the past five or six years that fires have become more frequent, even the norm.

You don’t have to be a climate scientist or a political liberal to see that the Earth is on fire.

And the reason only you can prevent forest fires, is because they are usually caused by YOU! Human beings.

A lot of it is accidental. Some farm equipment causes a spark in a dry wheat field on a windy day … boom, 50,000 acres, homes and towns threatened. Gather up your family heirlooms and prepare to flee!

I don’t want to see that again.

A lawnmower blade hits a rock and causes a spark, and you park it on the finished lawn to go cool down with a beer and a cold shower.

You drive down the road, feeling invincible, listening to Van Halen, flicking your cigarette out the window and BOOM, a 20,000-acre fire is still under investigation.

You want to celebrate the birth of a nation, the United States of America, and do so by burning down a chunk of it with Chinese fireworks. How patriotic of you!

I beg of you, please, for the love of all that is holy, don’t do any of these things! Don’t shoot hot bullets at varmints on a dry prairie. Don’t start a campfire in your own back yard where an ember gets carried by the wind 500 yards away into a dry field. Don’t park your hot engine on a dry clump of grass on some dirt road. And don’t think that you are above these rules. Don’t think, “Ah it won’t happen to me. I’m careful. I was a boy scout.”

Eighty-five percent of wildfires are caused by YOU. By human beings.

Enjoy the professional fireworks show at the Grand Coulee Dam. Save your personal fireworks for New Years when it’s snowy and wet. Use an ashtray instead of your car window. Roast your weenies on a propane grill instead of a sparking fire.

I know all these things are fun. But fearing for our homes is not. Mow your lawn, just be aware!

And finally, don’t let alcohol convince you otherwise. It’s very American to drink! The founding fathers are said to have drunk more beer than water. They started a revolution, but you might start a fire.

Please don’t be an idiot, for all of our sakes.

Only YOU can prevent forest fires.

Jacob Wagner