S TANDARD TERRACE
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VOL. 27 NO. 12
www.terracestandard.com
Wednesday, July 15, 2015
AARON MUZZERALL, ROBERT MCARTHUR, NORTHWEST FIRE CENTRE, MARGARET SPEIRS PHOTOS
LEFT TO right: Attack crew member at the fire just north of Terrace; house fire in New Remo; forest fire at Cedarvale; deputy fire chief Dave Jephson at Greig Ave. fire.
Fires wreak havoc on region TWO OF the almost 200 forest fires blazing around the province last week happened near Terrace and two other fires in town destroyed a family home and caused a bottled water company to be hero for a day. The cause of all the local fires, with the exception of the house fire which is still under investigation, was burning debris falling from power lines. The first power line incident occurred in the early afternoon on July 8, when burning material from a blown transformer caused a grass fire next to the former janitorial equipment store building across Greig Ave. from AquaClear. Scott Mitchell, manager of AquaClear, was having a conversation with a health officer in the foyer of his business when they both saw the flash of light on a power pole and then smoke rising. “I knew if we didn’t get it out quickly, it
would spread quickly,” said Mitchell. He grabbed one of the company’s 18.9 litre water bottles and together with his employees raced across the street to find a blaze about seven or eight feet in diameter, and began dousing it, he said. Terrace firefighters arrived on the scene after the fire was already out, and further doused the area to ensure it was fully out. Then later the same afternoon, in Cedarvale east of Terrace, a blaze started by Hwy 16. This was a two hectare fire that destroyed a tractor and an outbuilding on a Cedarvale property and forced the evacuation of one residence for the night. At the height of the fire, there were 30 firefighters working and two airplanes bombing the site with fire retardant. It also caused RCMP to close Hwy 16 for
one-and-a-half hours. Northwest Fire Centre official Sandy Maclean confirmed the fire was caused by branches falling on the line, igniting, and then tumbling to the tinder-dry ground. Then on the evening of July 9, a third grassfire started around power lines at Leanto Creek on the Nisga’a Highway about 15 km north of Terrace, “A tree fell across the power line and that started a fire in the grass [below],” noted Maclean. Fire attack crews responded to the fire in a helicopter, but the three-person crew then had to wait for BC Hydro to respond to make sure the area was safe before extinguishing the 0.1 hectare blaze, he said. Residents along the highway lost power for a few hours while crews put out the fire. All these instances are something that
would usually cause a disruption in hydro, but they would not normally ignite a blaze, explained Maclean. “With such dry conditions, what would normally be a non-event now has the possibility to generate a fire,” said Maclean. “The whole area is quite dry so we are aggressively responding to every call we get.” In fact, last week’s scorching weather has led to almost double the average number of wildfires this year, say local fire officials. As of last week, there had been 62 fires just in the northwest region which is almost twice as many as the 10-year average of 38 fires. Fifteen fires were sparked in the northwest region between July 3-9. The house fire that happened in New Remo started next to the deck.
By JOSH MASSEY
descended by helicopter into another area, this time Sheslay River where many Tahltan historically lived and where many burial sites still exist, to tell mining company Doubleview that they should stop doing exploratory drilling in a wide swath of land. “It may not have received the publicity of the Headwaters and the Klappan, but now that we’re coming together and have made a decision to protect that area, it could easily turn into another situation like that,” said Day after returning from the Doubleview camp. The Tahltan push to protect the Sacred Headwaters involved years of organized blockades and other disruptions, as well as lawsuits and injunctions wielded in defence by mining companies.
Alternating versions surfaced of what happened in the remote Sheslay meeting, with Day saying he received a promise from company president Farshad Shirvani that Doubleview would stop drilling for the summer, and Shirvani posting in a July 8 press release on the company website that the company wants to resume drilling as soon as possible. The Doubleview release calls the action by the Tahltan Central Council and elders a “blockade,” while Day described it simply as a visit and a stern meeting with the company after which the company pressed stop on its drilling equipment. Shirvani was still occupied in camp last week, but in the press release says, “We have dealt respectfully with the Tahltan Nation
ever since we commenced first-ever drilling at the Hat in 2013. Exploration in this district has been carried out for more than half a century, and Tahltan Drilling Services has been contracted for all of Doubleview’s drilling to date.” The release goes on to say that “Our aim is to resume drilling as quickly as possible... we are consulting with our legal counsel to determine the best steps to take to allow drilling to resume.” Tahltan communications liaison Richard Truman said that Tahltan Drilling Services is a company once associated with the Tahltan Development Corporation but that the central council severed ties with it recently over the issues at Sheslay.
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Tahltan mining dispute erupts again WE ALL know that history tends to get repeated, but who knew it would happen this soon? Tahltan Central Council President Chad Day said last week that the presence of a copper and gold mining company in Tahltan traditional territory 50 kilometres east of Telegraph Creek could mean a Sacred Headwaters-like struggle all over again. This comes two months after the provincial government bought back coal licences from coal mining company Fortune Minerals to ease a decade-long conflict in the much contested Klappan, or Sacred Headwaters area. Last week, Day and four Tahltan elders
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Good works
Home living
Moving on up
Community foundation names five groups as its first grant recipients \COMMUNITY A10
Health program lets seniors recover and receive care at home \NEWS A13
Local youths take on roles as members of Team BC volleyball \SPORTS A22