Opal Wildfire Update #4

May 16, 2010

The important stuff first.  The Opal wildfire has now become the Halfmoon Lake fire.  At about 2:00 pm today, the fire jumped its northern guard.  In the following two hours it traveled about 2 kms.  It is now a km south of the east end of Halfmoon Lake Natural Area.  The whole zone has been evacuated.

To all the people that have offered trailering, corrals and pastures for horses and livestock, thank you.  I have a list and will make it available to people as required.

I did have time to evacuate my grandmother's old rocking chair out of the caretaker's cabin on the Pioneer Trail North Foundation property.  I have now talked to five people that can put quad activity at the place and at the time of the start of the fire.

Get this one -- two of our members were out at the RES site today when they encountered three young people -- two on quads and one on a dirt bike, tearing around on the trails.

Now, if that's not enough to get you disturbed, a firefighter reported to me that at around 11:15 am on Range Road 582, three brand new 4x4's pulled up hauling trailers.  They carried 7 quads, one child's quad and two dirt bikes.  They wanted to 'go out and see what damage had been done to their favorite quadding area'.  They became very agitated when they were told that they could not go out there at all.

What is the matter with these people!!!

They want to go riding across land that they don't own without permission, crossing grazing leases, through a protected area and into a fire zone -- and they argue when they're told no.

I would like to know the answer to a few other questions:

Why is it that when the county issues a county-wide fire ban it doesn't automatically include a ban on OHVs?  They must know that every second one has the spark arrester removed due to the 'need for speed'.

Why would the association of municipalities vote down a motion that would have seen fees placed on quads that would go towards the development of trails for them as well as the cost of policing their activities?

And finally, why are our political masters running away from this issue?

So far I have received 139 positive responses to these emails.  People are relaying the information one-to-one and over the internet on things like facebook and twitter.

Please keep up the good work of sending a message out into the public that something has to be done about the way people are using our open spaces.  If you know someone that can help or that is interested in helping, give them my email address.

More to come.

Richard