The massive wildfire that started in Tantallon on Sunday May 28, took a step closer to Sandy Lake & Environs yesterday, when it evidently jumped to the Farmers Dairy area or started there independently:
It seems to have been quickly brought under control –
this a.m. on Twitter:
…As happenstance had it, I set out for a walk in the Sandy Lake Beach Park area at 1 pm yesterday. On my way out, I stopped at the beach and took a pic, no fire clouds in the sky to the west. Ok I thought, it seems to be under control. That was at 4:08 p.m.
About 40 min later I turned right from Smiths Road and headed west on Hammonds Plains Rd to go to a plant nursery still outside of the evacuation and be-prepared-to-leave zones. When I got to the top of the first hill, I could see a smokey cloud not far ahead; just before I got to the road into Farmers Dairy, a fire engine rushed by and turned up that road…more emergency vehicles followed.
So the fire had apparently taken off between the time I was at Sandy Lake Beach Park and when I approached the road to Farmers Dairy, an interval of 30-45 min.
By 5:30 pm a blanket ban on all woods activities in HRM was issued; that owuld be my last walk in the woods for a few days at least.
On my walk I had revelled in the spring foliage, the sounds of vireos and ovenbirds and other warblers, and noted that, blessedly, there was still no sign of HWA (Hemlock Wooly Adelgid) on the hemlocks.
Now I wondered about friends who reside in the area of the dairy and further along Hammonds Plains Road.
Later, going over my pics, I wondered ‘could the vagaries associated with climate warming destroy these beautiful forests even before HWA could get there?’ Or before we could give in to pressures to develop the area?
‘Made me appreciate how precious all life is and that we must never give up…
