August 7, 2016. Western Head, Nova Scotia. Forest Fires.

My e mails today included questions about forest fires in Queen's County, Nova Scotia, where we live.  In many ways, living here now is a bit like living in Texas.   The grass is mostly brown, something folks in Nova Scotia do not like.  No substantial rain has fallen for a month so the flowers are wilting.  People are fearful of their wells running dry so do not water either the grass or the flowers.  Normally they never water anything because the rains fall regularly.   The whole county has a burn ban.  No fires and no burning anywhere, even on the shore.

Now there are three small wild fires in the county.  One is in the big Kedji park, another is near Greenfield on the other side of Ponhook Lake, where we have our cottage, and the third is off highway 8 on the way to Annapolis Royal..  According to the county, the firefighters are having success with putting out the fires but they are not out yet.  One main difference with Texas is the temperature.  Today was a very hot 82 in town.  At the shore it was 75.

75 years ago there was a drought in Queen's County.  Along the shore from Sand Beach Road where Gill lives, the old maps show a road.   On the map you can see houses.   During the drought, a fire started in one of the houses burning trash, which started the woods ablaze and then the grasses.  Every house burned and all the forest.  The homes were only accessible along the one road and was not connected to highway 3.  In order to drive along the road you had to cross the creek and the creek had to be low.  The county never allowed the people to rebuild their homes after the fire because the fire department could not take their vehicles down the old road.  People in the county take forest fires seriously which always surprises us because mostly here it is so wet.  But sometimes it is dry.  Now we understand.