As the smoke from fires in northern Alberta is in the air as I write this, I think it’s a good time to simply talk about how appreciative we should be to firefighters.

Every year without fail firefighters across the province begin their battles with large forest fires.

Some are born from natural causes and some are made from stupid errors by people.

I feel for the firefighters who have to spend day after day fighting a fire that was totally unavoidable and without a doubt, every year, there are always a couple of them.

But whether or not the cause is natural doesn’t take away all they do for the people of this province.

There have been times when men and women fighting the blazes have been simply incredible in their push to contain fires.

Sometimes the fires are too intense and shifts in wind limit what they can do but overall there are more times than not that these brave citizens save entire towns and cities.

The willingness to do what these firefighters do is definitely something we should be thanking them for more than we currently do.

These people spend weeks at a time away from their families and every time they leave it’s to put their own lives in danger to save strangers.

What they do is truly amazing so the next time you see a firefighter, go thank them for all they do to keep us safe from the dangers of fires.