After last year’s long dry spring and summer led to numerous brush fires around Langley, you’d think people would understand fire safety.
After the infamous case of six dogs dying inside a hot car, their deaths covered up as a theft by their dog walker, you’d think people would know not to leave animals in a car on a sunny day.
And after any of a series of tragedies, you would expect people to not forget their children in their vehicles, either.
But these incidents keep happening. Perhaps we forget, over the cool and rainy months that make up more than half our year. So, with another heat wave inbound, here’s a quick refresher course on surviving and thriving in the heat.
• Water: drink it. Stay hydrated, and keep those around you, especially children and the elderly, cool and hydrated too.
• Cars: Do not leave anyone or anything that breathes in a hot car. You wouldn’t put your dog in an oven, would you?
• Cigarettes: If you are out for a walk, and you must light one, maybe take that butt home with you. Do not toss it onto the side of the road. Likewise, do not flick them from your car into dry beds of mulch or long grass. Those sirens you hear minutes, hours, days later? Those could be your fault.
• Air conditioning: If you are very hot and uncomfortable, seek it out. Head to the library, the community centre, the shopping mall. Sit for a while. Drink some water again. Wait until the temperature drops a bit.
• Fire: Do not set them. Do not build a bonfire, no, not even in a brick-lined pit. Those men in the big red truck will give you a ticket.
The vast majority of our readers know all this already. But if we can remind one person, it’s worth a lecture once a year.
– M.C.