To the Editor:
As we are about to recognize the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s burn ban and restriction on open-air fires, I am thinking about what our local town, county, state, and federal governments are proactively planning in the event that we ever have an extended drought and a wildfire should start, given that during 2023 we were choking on smoke from fires as far away as Canada.

I am concerned. At one point last year, I could not see the Helderberg Escarpment from Indian Ladder Farms solely because of the smoke from Canada!

If the fires in Canada, Hawaii, Texas, and California are so hard to put out, have our leaders looked ahead to do a better job here if such a wildfire should sweep across our county or state?

Let’s not be reactive to such a catastrophe but be proactive and formulate a response that works better to save life and property than what happened in the aforementioned locations.

Our country, in this time of climate change, and rising temperatures, which are leading to more destructive fires, should have a division of the military called the “Fire Force.”

We have the “United States Space Force” now, so why not the “U.S. Fire Force?”

They would be devoted to fighting fires inside and outside the country wherever fire affected the lives of citizens of the United States. The “Fire Force” would be supplied with a reasonable amount of manpower and firefighting equipment to extinguish vast wildfires before there is a loss of life and property.

The point of this letter, my fellow citizens, is to get you thinking about what’s going to happen if we experience an extended drought some time and a wildfire starts here, let’s say in Albany County. What is the plan and how fast will it be implemented so as to be effective?

Let’s not enter a future with a disregard for a potential danger that has devastated so many others in our country and act like it couldn’t happen here. At the very least, let’s have a plan in place that has a reasonable chance of working.

I like the idea of a mobile military “Fire Force.” It’ll serve all of the U.S. and should be well funded to battle the enemy, which is an out-of-control fire.

Fires lay the landscape to waste much like what is remaining after war. If it can happen just north of us in Canada, I think it can happen here.

Quite frankly, I don’t like my air quality to be compromised nor the destruction of a cross-country sweeping wildfire. If we can support a “Space Force” to remain competitive in space, I think we need a “Fire Force” to protect our terra firma and all that resides upon it.

Timothy J. Albright

Meadowdale