CALEB NICKERSON
CLARENDON May 30, 2018
Despite the recent rainfall over the weekend, the local fire department is asking residents to comply with the laws of the land surrounding bonfires and the like.
Though the fire ban was lifted in the area on May 28, bonfires are still a no-go.
“In Clarendon, the rule is, there’s no open fires allowed from April 30 till Nov. 1,” explained Shawville-Clarendon Fire Department (SCFD) Chief Lee Laframboise. “If you want to have a fire with one of these little screened-in devices you can buy at Canadian Tire, you’re allowed to do that, but you get a permit from [the municipality]. The permit’s free, and it lasts for the whole year, it’s to let us know who has them. If it got super dry, we could call them and tell them not to burn.”
Shawville residents are also barred from open fires but can use screened-in appliances without a permit.
Laframboise added that there are some special events throughout the year where they allow open flames, usually supervised by members of the department.
He said that a call they responded to in Clarendon on May 23 exemplified why the bans are in place.
“Somebody was burning brush, it made a lot of smoke and someone driving by was worried. There was bush right there,” he explained. “When you get a call, you don’t know what it is, you have to take a truck that pumps water and a truck that hauls water and a truck with tools, so you end up with three trucks and ten fireman and it’s a little wee [fire] you could put out with a garden hose.”
Just a few days prior, on the holiday Monday, the SCFD responded to a brush fire off the 11th Concession where several acres went up in smoke. Laframboise explained that brush fires always involve the Société de protection des forêts contre le feu (SOPFEU).
“Any bush fire I always report to SOPFEU in Maniwaki,” he said. “The government pays them to put fires out. So if in Clarendon, I have a fire that goes into the bush, and we extinguish it without a water bomber and that, they’ll come down and check it over the next day and they’ll reimburse the municipality for their expenses.”
He said that homeowners emptying woodstove contents or cigarette butts in the ditch account for a good portion of these sorts of blazes, and advised the public to be extra cautious during the coming months.
The warm weather over the past few weeks has kept the local departments on their toes. On May 14 and 15, water bombers from SOPFEU were called in to battle large brush fires along Rte. 366 in Thorne and Hwy. 148 in Bryson.
