Page 5 of Ink and Ashes
Almosttooeasy…
I make a mental note to find out more about George as he adds, “Out of curiosity, whatareyour theories?”
I roll my lips together, debating whether or not to tell him the truth. But George seems like he might have theories of his own. If I’m lucky, maybe they’ll align with mine.
“I don’t have any concrete proof yet. But in my career, I’ve learned to put at least a little bit of trust in my gut. And my gut is telling me to consider the possibility that the fires are being caused by arson,” I say simply, preparing myself for a poor reaction.
But it doesn’t come.
George’s eyes narrow momentarily, but then he blows out a breath and says, “I’m glad someone is willing to say it.”
My eyes widen. “So you think it’s possible?”
He clicks his tongue. “I think it’s more than possible, Holland.”
That sets another alarm off in my head. Brows pulled together, I ask, “Why haven’t you said anything in the paper? Or reported your suspicions to the police?”
“Without proof, the police won’t do anything. And like I said,I don’t usually publish opinion pieces. I’m especially not going to publish my own. If I did, I’d be chased out of town before the papers even hit porches.”
He’s not wrong, but that doesn’t stop me from moving him up my metaphorical list of potential suspects.
“You think they’ll do the same to me?”
“I think they’ll try.” He lets out a laugh. “But something tells me you aren’t one to scare off easily.”
I smirk. “You’re right about that.”
“Write whatever you want. The paper goes out weekly on Sunday, so you’ve got two days if you want to get something in the next one.”
I doubt I’ll be ready to publish that soon, but I thank him anyway. He pats me on the arm and turns back to his workspace.
I pull my laptop from my bag and set it on the desk. Taking a seat in the chair, I pick up where I left off last night, researching wildfires in North Okanagan and, more specifically, the town of Ember Grove.
North Okanagan covers a total of nearly 750,000 hectares in British Columbia. EGFD is responsible for covering nearly 17,000 of that, and over 7,000 hectares in their jurisdiction is the Monashee Community Forest. Their department sees an average of two hundred calls annually, the majority of which are for motor vehicle accidents, given that the town is located right on the main highway. They also do search and rescue in the off-season, which accounts for about a quarter of their annual calls.
Within the area they cover, Ember Grove usually only sees about twenty-five fires each year, an average of eight of which are wildfires. Two or three often spark in early April when things start to dry up, but the bulk of the fires don’t hit until the end of July or beginning of August. Most of the fires they fight are structural or come from travelling to other jurisdictions to assist.
This year though, they’ve been the ones needing the help.
Coming from a city in Ontario, we never really heard much about wildfires. Everyone east of here knows about the hell British Columbia and Alberta face every summer, but I never realized theextent of them. Last year alone, over 1.08 million hectares were burned across British Columbia, and the year before that was even more. Hell, this province has seen numerous fires that span over 100,000 hectares, whereas in Ontario, that was our total area burned last year. The fire sizes and intensities there are nothing compared to here.
That’s not to say it wasn’t bad for us too. But even living in Toronto, the only thing we hear about wildfires comes from people complaining about thepoor air qualityfrom the smoke. The news tends to pick and choose when to talk about wildfires, and people that aren’t directly impacted are often either kept in the dark or can’t be bothered to pay attention.
I’m embarrassed to admit I was the latter.
But I’m changing that now. All of this may be brand new information for me, but I have years of experience investigating, and I’m hoping that will be enough to get me started. I may not have experience with fires, but I know what kind of things to keep an eye out for.
I’m nothing if not persistent, and if it turns out that these fires really are being caused by dry lightning storms, I’ll be the first to admit I was wrong. I may be competitive and determined, but I’m also capable of acknowledging when I make a mistake.
For the town’s sake, I hope Iammaking a mistake here. But selfishly, I hope I’m not. I need this case to prove myself to the people doubting me. If I turn out to be wrong about this, I think I’ll start doubting myself too.
I work for a little while longer, and when I’m sure I’m not going to find anything else today, I decide my best bet is to head down to the fire station and see what they have to say.
If Google can’t help me, maybe the people on the frontlines will.
CHAPTER 3
Colson
