If you haven’t been aware of the fires that have scorched across the region over the last week or so, you must have been living under a rock.

And as we know, all three of these fires were human caused.  And that, in turn, has sparked a lot of conversation in the community about people being more careful so they don’t accidentally spark a fire in the Okanagan’s tinder dry summer conditions.

Wayne Corbeil of West Kelowna was kind enough to forward on a product a friend of his helped develop.  It’s called the Pocket Butty… Yes, that’s butt-ey, like a cigarette butt.  It’s one of those things that seem so simple and seemily common-sense, you wonder why there aren’t more of them.

Now I’m not a smoker myself, but I can tell that sometimes smokers just don’t have anywhere to put out their cigarette… maybe they’re in their car and they don’t want to use their ashtray… that actually leads to another problem… a lot of times, even smokers don’t want to have to be around the smell of a cigarette butt, much less put it back into their pack to save for later.  So what can happen is a person may drop it on the ground and think it’s out when in reality it isn’t.

So, that’s where the Pocket Butty comes into play.  The developers of this product say if you just drop it inside, it will put the cigarette out within seconds, seal off the smell of the cigarette butt, and also serve as a storage container should you not want to waste your money by throwing away a half-smoked cigarette.  Seems like a reasonable product - and at a pretty reasonable price.  Pay five bucks and you’ll always have a handy place to snuff and stash your smoked cigarettes.

Now another little gadget caught my eye on the web this week… it’s not Christmas time yet, I do realize it’s still the height of summer in the Okanagan, but I’m hoping this gadget will be ready by this Christmas.  Developers are working on a Christmas tree ornament that doubles as a smoke detector.  Seems like a no-brainer to me, especially when we hear about dry Christmas trees going up in flames and unfortunately, sometimes destroying homes along with it.  You’ll be able to hang this little ornament on your Christmas tree just like any other, only this one will sound a loud alarm should it detect smoke or excessive heat.

Unfortunately, I’ve only heard about this one in the works, and not yet for sale… but I’m definitely going to keep my eye out for this when Christmas rolls around… it’s just plain smart.