Sandilands resident frustrated with lack of forest fire precautions

A Sandilands resident is frustrated with the province as he feels the community wasn’t allowed to take the necessary forest fire safety precautions.

Ronnie Bugera moved to his current property on the east side of the community of Sandilands 5 years ago. He says he, his wife, and his daughter currently have all of their valuables packed up into their vehicle and have them parked on the driveway in case they need to escape the current forest fire.

Bugera says shortly after he moved to Sandilands, he approached his MLA and the Minister of Conservation and Climate to ask permission to clean up dead-fall.

"We even have formed an association, hoping that we could get some leverage with the association to allow us to get some of the dry standing wood around the towns like Sandilands, Woodridge, and Carrick, and let us pick some of that stuff up and we were turned down."

Bugera says the dead-fall would have made excellent fuel for those that burn wood for heat and removing it would have helped safeguard their communities. He notes they were told ’No’ for environmental reasons. He says he remembers when the community of Badger burned in the ’60s, he was part of the Woodridge evacuation just over 10 years ago, and now this.

"I tried to impress on the government, the politicians on behalf of the wood harvesters that all we wanted was just to be able to clean it up and keep our town safe, but it seems like our efforts fell on deaf ears. Now, I'm watching out my window and there's smoke in the town Sandilands."

Going forward, Bugera says he would like to see a ring of trees cut down about half a mile out of town.

"The people in Sandilands, I haven't talked to anybody in within Woodridge yet but there are a couple of old-timer loggers there as well and we're going to be getting together after this is all over and see if we can maybe get that strip cut around the towns of Woodridge, Sandilands, and Carrick."

Especially considering many of the firefighters working on this fire are volunteers, Bugera says he feels bad for them. He notes they must be exhausted by now.

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Written by Kenton Dyck