Smokers biggest cause
I know train brakes are often a cause of grass fires. But I wonder how many more are caused by smokers throwing their butts out the window instead of using their ash trays? When I was growing up in the prairies, it was a big "no no" to throw cigs. out the window of cars. If you started a fire, you would probably end up fighting it as well! Are we much more stupid now adays that we could care less where our butts go. Also, sounded like a little confusion of who was fighting this fire. Some departments didn't know others were fighting the same area fire. Just shows the need for rural fire departments to have same frequencies. Seemed like Strathmore and Chestermere didn't realize they had both been dispatched to the same fire [sorry, just can't remember station numbers]. Seemed like they just required more water than equipement. With a late spring, sure are having a lot of trouble with grass fires inside and outside Calgary. Probably not much can be done about fires started by trains, but people, please be careful with cig. butts.
