Putting Out Fires

“It’s really hard to keep your mind at work when you want to be at home, taking care of things for your family,” he says.

As the days passed, the situation got worse, threatening his parents’ home in Williams Lake and his ranching community in Big Creek. 

“I hadn’t heard from my family in several days because the fire took out the power lines too, so I had no way of contacting them,” he says. “I was getting pretty worried at that point.”

Since flights to Williams Lake were cancelled, Regan hitched a ride home with a buddy, avoiding the many roadblocks by using the back roads he was familiar with from his 18 years in the logging industry.

“Once I got home, all hell broke loose,” he says.

Along with others in the small ranching community, Regan immediately got to work.

“A bunch of us got together and tried to contain the fire. We borrowed some pumps and equipment from local loggers who weren’t working at the moment to make fire lines so the fire didn’t jump. But the fire was so large, and going so fast, it generated its own weather system and just blew past the fire guard.”

Although he had dealt with fire before in his logging career, he had never experienced anything quite like this.

“When you’re running the equipment trying to put out the fire, you’re watching the weather and you’re looking over your shoulder to make sure the fire’s not crowning or coming toward you. When you’re making your fire lines or guards, you have to make a safe zone every half a kilometre. The safe zone is basically an area big enough to put your equipment if the fire goes through it so it doesn’t burn the equipment—or worse, you.

“Fighting the fire, it was so hot. I would hear, boom! Like dynamite going off. The trees were burning so hot they were exploding. I had to be very careful because then they’d fall over. It was so smoky that ash was falling out of the sky and landing on my arms.”

Regan and his fellow ranchers did their best to keep the fire threatening their community at bay. At one point, they were using up to 10 pieces of equipment for one small area. 

“It sounds like a lot, but it was just a drop in the bucket,” he says. “The fires were so big and so out of control, and the wind was blowing it everywhere. Even after the fire’s been controlled, it can flare back up again. The whole summer was like that, and everyone was tense. It was the craziest summer I’ve ever experienced.” 

A WAR ZONE. THAT’S HOW Mike Langenhan describes the areas of BC destroyed by the past summer’s devastating wildfires.

“There’s no other word to describe driving down the highway at 100 kilometres per hour and seeing no end to the devastation,” he says. “The mountainside was completely black. Fields were black. Homes were rubble.”

As a volunteer firefighter, Mike experienced first hand the intensity and destruction.

“In my four years of volunteer firefighting, I’ve never seen anything like it,” he says. “The fire burned with such an intensity that the heat coming off it was melting everything around it.”

Mike is a Local 68 member and equipment operator employed by Dowland Industrial Works Ltd. (DIW). He was on a scheduled day off on Thursday, July 6, when a wildfire first sparked around 100 Mile House—just an hour away from his small community of Blackpool. 

“Around five or six that evening, we started to get really heavy winds, lightning—the whole nine yards,” he says.

His firefighting crew jumped into action, working to contain the fires and configure a strategy. 

On Friday, his fire crew made the call to do a tactical evacuation of the Little Fort area and monitor the progression of the Dunn Lake fire as more fires broke out in the surrounding regions.

Whenever a fire came close to a structure like a home, power line, or pumping station, we picked up the torch and made sure all was protected,” he says. “We also communicated with local communities for everyone that had access to water to throw their sprinklers on. This created humidity in the air and slowed the progression of the fires.”

Over the next few days, it was difficult to see where the fire was burning because it was so smoky and there was little visibility. Mike recalls going to bed one night and the glow from the fire lighting up his bedroom like daylight.

“There was a northern finger of the Elephant Hill fire that came into Sheridan Lake, and it was a class five or class six fire—that’s a fire you can’t do anything about,” says Mike. “You can’t bring in bombers. The smoke is so heavy and the flames are so high, and it just rolls. It’s too dangerous to bring in aircraft or any personnel close to it.”

In the following three weeks, Mike lived at the fire hall to act as liaison for the incoming and outgoing support from other fire detachments, as well as working alongside different forestry crews. But what gave them the most feedback from the community was simply cruising around neighbourhoods.

“It seems like such a small, basic thing, but it gave people a sense of security seeing fire trucks driving around,” says Mike. “We may not have been on the front lines, but we were there for the community, making sure they were safe and comfortable. If you think about it, there’s this massive fire that’s been blazing for weeks, and you can’t just pick up your house and go somewhere. So seeing a few fire trucks cruising around every now and then gives you a sense of relief.” 

The small town of Ashcroft in particular experienced widespread devastation and the destruction of many homes. 

“When I was driving through Ashcroft, all I could see were the relics of buildings left behind,” says Mike. “The whole town was basically painted red with fire retardant. It’s eerie driving through a community and everything has a red tinge to it.” 

Since the provincial state of emergency was lifted on September 15—and Mike has been back to work at DIW after several weeks—he’s remained active in his community, helping people reassess their properties and educating them on fire safety.

“If we have another fire like this, we want people to be ready so they’ll have an easier time putting up barricades and defenses,” he says. “And I do think a wildfire like this will happen again. The weather systems are going to dictate it, and we’re going to see it more and more frequently. In BC, we’ve got lots of fuel load in the forest with all the dead standing pine, and it’s so mountainous. Especially with warmer weather and drier conditions globally, it’s a recipe for disaster.”

Being a part of the fire crew, and having a hand in keeping communities safe, keeps Mike going.

“It’s one of the best things I’ve done in my life, being a part of something that does positive things in the community and potentially saving someone’s life,” he says. “I'm so thankful to everyone for the teamwork, long hours, and dedication. But it’s not a one-man show. I’m not a superstar. The real superstars are the ones on the ground, on the front lines. I’ve heard stories of guys who were fighting the wildfires during the day and their boots were literally melting. A couple guys I know were posting to Facebook that they needed new boots as soon as possible because theirs had melted.”

Mike has a deep respect for the front-line firefighters, and sympathy for those who have lost their homes. 

“It’s unfortunate that those people couldn’t get out of the way of the fires, or their homes couldn’t have jumped out of the way,” he says. “I really feel for those who have lost everything because they never had a chance.”

GLYN BLAIR WAS AT HIS uncle’s house when he got the call from his nephew that his mobile home was on fire. A day earlier, Glyn was scrolling through Facebook and seeing posts from friends about a brush fire down by Mussel Beach.

He grabbed his dog, hopped in his truck, and drove to a rock quarry outside Ashcroft to check out the brush fire. Thinking it was just some locals burning wild asparagus, he drove back home and went to bed.

The next morning, as he was driving to his uncle’s home in Salmon Arm, he saw smoke on the horizon and figured people were just watering the brush fire down. 

It was then that he got the call that the Boston Flats trailer park was burning.

At first he thought his nephew was pulling his leg. But his nephew told him that a friend, a volunteer firefighter from Cache Creek, was literally watching Glyn’s trailer burn down as they spoke.

“I lost everything,” Glyn says. “Everything’s gone except what I had in my truck—a canopy, a Coleman stove for camping, and a bunch of blankets.” 

Although Glyn has received some financial assistance to help cover the cost of his losses, there are some things you can’t put a price tag on.

“You don’t get reimbursed for the photos of your son growing up—his first time walking, first time riding a bike,” he says. “Those are gone and I’ll never get them back.”

Among the valuable items Glyn lost were a record collection handed down to him from his grandparents; a comic book collection including a first edition of the Incredible Hulk; and Wayne Gretzky’s, Mario Lemieux’s, and Steve Yzerman’s rookie hockey cards.

“Everything I lost, they’re just things,” he says. “I have my family, so I can quickly forget about hockey cards, comics, and records. But it’s hard to forget losing someone, and I’m so thankful I didn’t lose anyone in the fire.”

After the fire ripped through his trailer park, completely destroying it, Glyn lived with family and has been staying with them since. He couldn’t return to the park for weeks to even take a look at the damage because of health and safety concerns in the area. 

Although he’s picked out a new trailer, and people in the community have slowly been rebuilding their lives, he won’t be able to return to the park until May or June next year. He’s anxious to go back as he was a mainstay in the community, helping the older people by mowing their lawns, weed-whacking, and performing other chores.

“It’s been a long two months, and I look forward to what’s coming,” he says. “Fire can be your best friend or your worst enemy—and this year, in our area, it was our enemy.”

As an equipment operator employed by PRHP at the Site C dam, Glyn has faced a lot of uncertainty in the future of his career due to the ongoing debate over the project’s future. He was recently laid off. 

“There’s been a lot of unknowns about this dam,” he says. “The uncertainty creates a lot of stress. But I’ll move on to the next thing. One day at a time.” 

In the meantime, Glyn is planning for his future in a brand new trailer—a 16-foot-wide, 68-foot-long model with three bedrooms. He maintains a positive outlook despite the loss and uncertainty that have blazed through his life with the wildfires.

“I’m just happy that I’m still here, I’m still intact, and I’m alright,” says Glyn. “There are things being done and put into place so I can rebuild. Things can’t burn twice. What’s done is done. It’s all gone. But from ash comes new growth.” 

BC Wildfires Fast Facts 

On July 6, 2017, a two-hectare wildfire began west of 100 Mile House, marking the beginning of the wildfire season. On July 7, 56 new fires started throughout BC, leading to several evacuation alerts and orders and a provincial state of emergency.

894,491 hectares burned

1958 - previous record year (855,000 hectares burned)

$315.7 million cost of damage

45,000 people evacuated

Sources: globalnews.ca, cbcnews.ca 

Wildfire Ranks

Rank 1 – Smouldering ground fire

Rank 2 – Low vigour surface fire

Rank 3 – Moderately vigorous surface fire

Rank 4 –  Highly vigorous surface fire with torching, or passive crown fire

Rank 5 –  Extremely vigorous surface fire or active crown fire

Rank 6 –  A blow up or conflagration, extreme and aggressive fire behaviour

Source: gov.bc.ca

Long Ride Home

GERRY BAZIN IS A STRUCTURAL FOREMAN employed by Dowland Industrial Works Ltd. (DIW) working in 100 Mile House, BC, and living in Beaumont, Alberta. 

How does he travel between work and home? A 2016 Harley Davidson Road King. 

Gerry typically makes the 840-kilometre trek between work and home in 9.5 hours, stopping only three times for fuel and food.

But this past summer, the long ride home looked a little different. 

Gerry was attending a funeral in BC with his wife when 100 Mile House was given the order to evacuate. Their two teenaged kids back home in Alberta were following the fire’s progression on Facebook and were desperately trying to get a hold of them. 

“My kids were really worried about us and kept trying to text us and figure out where we were, especially because they knew I had my bike and had to ride it back,” he says. “They were seeing all kinds of news about the fire on Facebook and couldn’t understand what was going on. They thought that the whole province was on fire!” 

The night before the funeral, Gerry biked around 100 Mile House going toward Williams Lake. He could see flames coming over the ridge.

“I’ve never seen a wildfire like that in my life,” he says. “You think it’s just a few acres here and there, but when you see how far the fire stretched, it’s shocking.”

Driving down Highway 24 back home, Gerry stopped a few times to take pictures. 

“The sun was out but it looked like the moon because it was so windy,” he says. “Everything was bright orange. I’ll never forget it.”