Three cheers for planning

In light of recent events we’d like to say some kind words about some much-maligned concepts in this part of the world — planning, government and government planning.

In case you haven’t been paying attention, the borough is currently experiencing something unprecedented: a w intertime fire season.

Nearly a dozen blazes have been touched off in just the last couple of weeks. Not one has cost someone his home or, thank goodness, her life.

In the firefighting game, we wouldn’t be the first to observe, there’s two major factors at play — luck and planning.

The current fire season has seen the borough very short on luck. It’s the opposite of lucky to have a fire start this time of year. And some of these things have started in unprecedented ways. A dragging trailer kicking up sparks? When was the last time that happened?

It’s also very bad luck to have to fight fires in this kind of wind, which has been pushing fires at a speed “almost unimaginable” in the words of one of today’s sources for news stories.

So given what kind of bad luck it is that lands our borough firefighters outside spraying water around in subzero temperatures, we feel pretty safe in saying that the lack of any major destruction has been due almost exclusively to planning.

We planned to have the right number of resources trained to the right level and available to respond when Mother Nature dealt us a bad hand. And the fruit of that planning has been brought to bear on this crisis.

But there’s also an element of that much more ill-received type of planning — urban planning — at play here.

Can you imagine if, in addition to the wind and the temperatures the firefighters had to contend with sub-standard roads, too?

That does happen sometimes around here. Firefighters show up to a scene but can’t get to it because the house that’s on fire sits on a road that is not maintained and on which their fire trucks would only get stuck accessing.

Often the homeowner doesn’t even know he lives on that kind of road. He is usually, to say the least, upset because he pays fire service taxes, just like anyone else.

But it’s also not a good thing for a fire department. Firefighters aren’t the type of people to take not being able to douse a fire lightly. They get upset when they can’t do the life-saving work they trained to do, and with good reason.

So here’s three cheers for planning. Because when your luck runs out, that’s really all that’s left.