Published Aug 15, 2026 • Last updated Aug 15, 2026 • 1 minute read
Andy Tait/The NaturalistWetaskiwin Times
Reading a story from the south of France on the incidental explosion of a WWII ammo cache detonated by fire, I was myself “triggered” by some experiences of my own. A shallowly buried tranche of around 400 artillery shells, unknown to the local population added to the stress and horror of France’s wildfire summer. Unexploded bombs and ammo dumps are found in Europe almost every day after some form of ground disturbance, but this cluster was hidden in the woods and went undiscovered for 82 years before the heat threshold was reached.
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Back in the early 1980’s, I was working for Construction Engineers (CE) at DND Camp Wainwright. Each spring, range fires were lit to prevent the inevitable conflagrations set off by military training and operations. Prescribed burning won’t prevent every fire, but overall it reduced fuel loading to a significant extent. My work unit assisted by walking the ranges and fire breaks, lighting fires with rag-and-wire torches, and sometimes assisting the DND Fire Dept (part of CE) when winds would pick up and carry activity beyond our lines, using range trucks.
I remember tippy-toeing around various kinds of munitions that were sticking up from the ground or scattered about, never knowing if they were duds or simulated examples, and modifying my ignition patterns accordingly. I don’t remember any “going off”, but I was always aware of the potential, something that stood me in good stead with my time in natural resources and for the two terms I did one winter with the DND Fire Service. We just never know what fires will end up exposing or what liabilities lurk in less travelled areas.
Fire is and provides natural processes that are difficult to replicate in other ways. The key is balancing toward public safety.
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