Slashburning in B.C.
June 08th, 2020
At the age of seven, Nicholas Raeside helped put out a bushfire in his bare feet. While studying in high school, he took days off to help fight local wild fires, sometimes with nothing on his feet but plastic sandals. As an adult he began worked in the logging industry where he held many jobs but eventually specialized in slashburning: the mandated use of controlled fires to clean up logging slash and other debris left behind by industrial logging, a practice meant to reduce fire hazards. He wrote about what it was like working in B.C.’s forests during the 1970s, 80s, and 90s when just about anything went, in his memoir Slashburner: Hot Times in the British Columbia Woods (Harbour $24.95). It’s his first book. 978-1-55017-898-2
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