“We just want people to be safe,” Saranac Lake Volunteer Fire Department Chief Brendan Keough said Friday. “We know people are going to recreate out on the ice, but the conditions are changing every day.”

He said he and village police Chief James Joyce want to send this message to people prevent anyone from falling through. No one has fallen through yet, to Keough’s knowledge, but he doesn’t want to get that call.

“We’ve had a lot of ice rescues over the years,” Keough said, including some at this time of year.

Plus, he added, an ice rescue would be harder than usual right now because his department’s air boat went out of commission over the winter. The department has ordered a new boat, but it won’t be ready until sometime in April.

Lake Colby shows a web of tracks from snowmobiles and sleds Friday afternoon, seen from the state boat launch. Ice fishing shanties, plentiful here recently, have been removed. (Enterprise photo — Lou Reuter)

For those who insist on venturing out on a hard-top lake, Keough advises them to “be fully aware of their surroundings and the ice conditions. If they’re going to go out on the ice, have some kind of flotation device and ice picks.” He said they should also let family members or friends know where they are going so that place can be checked in case they don’t return on time.

Also, he added, “Keep their pets on leashes, because we have a lot of dogs go through the ice this time of year, and then people go after their dogs.”

Ken McLaughlin has been a member of the SLVFD for almost 55 years, a member of its dive team for more than 50 and dive team captain for 48. He’s more cautious than Keough. He doesn’t think people should be out on any ice at all, ever, even with a life jacket or ice picks.

“I don’t call any ice safe,” McLaughlin said Friday. “The only safe ice is the ice that you’re standing on over solid ground, and even then it’s not safe because you could slip on it and fall.”

But he especially warns people about Lake Flower. He got nervous seeing an ice fishing shanty there recently, across River Street from St. Bernard’s School. By Friday it had been removed.

“Everybody sees it’s frozen over, but they don’t realize that it’s not a real lake,” McLaughlin said. “The ice is not good.”

Named for Roswell Flower, the New York governor in office when the Saranac Lake village was incorporated, Lake Flower is a dammed portion of the Saranac River that has a substantial current running through it. Yes, blocks are cut from the lake’s Pontiac Bay for the Ice Palace, the centerpiece of Saranac Lake’s annual Winter Carnival, but the bay freezes much thicker than most of the lake. The channel along Lake Flower Avenue has especially thin cover.

“Lake Flower is very unsafe, and in fact if you drove by there right now you’d see parts of the channel that are open,” McLaughlin said. “You can’t put signs up, because people won’t believe them.”

Lake Colby, on the north side of the village, freezes much thicker and is popular with anglers, but even there, McLaughlin is skeptical.

“Maybe I’m a little prejudiced because I’ve had to go out on so many ice rescues,” he said.