An open letter to Premier Christy Clark:
I implore you to immediately use, hire or purchase the Mars water bombers or build similar large planes for forest fire fighting in this province, to be retained on an ongoing basis.
I have seen the Mars plane in action and it is extremely effective. They should be used upon immediately spotting a fire, as common sense suggests snuffing it out before it reaches the dangerous stage most do. I witnessed one Mars bomber some years ago put out a fire on the Sunshine Coast at its early stages (such as the present Sechelt fire was initially) in under two hours.
The Sunshine Coast and the Vancouver mainland could possibly have been spared all this economic waste and health hazards if we had politicians with the foresight to have retained these planes and employed them immediately. We are largely a forested province and should have this kind of equipment available 24-7 especially with a scientifically predicted warmer climate change.
Forests need protecting and sustaining not only for their commercial use, which is a limited perspective, but more importantly as our main source of oxygen to breathe, upon which we are dependent for life itself. Hopefully we all now have a more profound respect and gratitude for this precious oxygen commodity as many of us have been housebound due to the hazardous outdoor smoke and dependent on the availability and circulation of house air only.
Andrea Smith, Halfmoon Bay
