My drive to the cubicle farm this morning was a smoky one, due to a massive fire that’s burning out of control in the Burns Bog in Delta, BC, just southeast of Vancouver. The air smells and tastes like peat smoke, and ash is falling to the ground as far away as downtown Vancouver. As I crossed the bridge to Richmond, I saw the massive column of smoke that’s rising from Delta. The very thing that has made peat such a valued fuel for thousands of years is going to make this one hard to put out — they say that bog fires burn slowly, and underground, so that even if it looks like it’s out, it may smoulder for weeks and even flare up again.
On the bright side, smokers stepping outside for a puff can spend less on cigarettes now.