Captured by Fire - Chris Czajkowski

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Coola at any time with a container of structural protection equipment. I followed Arlen around like a puppy dog, anxious to learn what I could about how to protect our place. He asked what buildings were of highest priority. Monika and I accepted that some would be lost (the sauna and lumber shed had wooden roofs and the greenhouse was covered in plastic). We decided the house and the pool room should receive the protection of sprinklers. We would try to protect the barn with our own hoses and nozzles, drawing water from a standpipe near the barn. By early afternoon the IA crews had added three sprinklers to our system (two on the house and one on the roof of the pool room) then left for the Taylor Ranch to place their remaining five sprinklers. This was grossly inadequate for all the buildings, but we were very grateful that they showed such concern for us and were willing to do whatever they could.

      Arlen pointed out that falling embers were the biggest danger. They could find their way into cracks and onto piles of fuel in the form of dried wood, grass or other combustibles. After Arlen left, Monika, Hoss and I began removing firewood from our sheds by the house and the greenhouse, dumping the piles onto the green meadow at a distance from the buildings.

      Everyone had much more fire experience than we did. Hoss told of a ride out of the mountains driving his pack horses ahead of a wildfire with the embers falling around him. David J was steeped in firefighting, as if weaned on it very early in the forests of British Columbia. And there was Arlen, so nonchalant about the fire, acknowledging that “it would burn” but doing all he could to protect us and our buildings.

      The Precipice Fire smouldered in the distance but was not growing quickly on this day. By late afternoon Mark flew in and told us the fire had increased only from 650 hectares to 680 hectares—but it was now only three and a half kilometres from us, on a point jutting out along the north slopes of the Hotnarko Canyon. He again urged us to leave. We were too tired to consider leaving and too busy to take pictures—the western horizon was a featureless wall of smoke in any case.

      Tuesday, July 11, was one of the darkest days of the fire. David J phoned in the morning. The Kleena Kleene Fire was raging and they needed all the resources they could muster to fight it. The folks of Anahim Lake were concerned because new fires were breaking out and the existing ones were expanding rapidly. Although it was thirty kilometres away, Anahim Lake was directly downwind from the Precipice Fire. People felt that the hoses, sprinklers and pumps that had been lent to us were needed to protect their own homes and ranches. David J was coming in to pick up his pressure pump. I was stunned by this turn of events. We were the closest to the fire and directly in the path of its most likely onslaught. It had to come through us to get to Anahim Lake. If it could be stopped at our place, Anahim Lake would be safe. We were the first line of defence and in the most need. How could David J consider such a thing?

      Monika was in tears with the news. She phoned Lee immediately. I walked to the pump uttering a continuous string of expletives. Hoss stumbled after me.

      I shouted, “If I had a gun I would go to the gate and not allow him on the property.” Then I turned to Hoss, a friend of both David J and me, and said more softly, filled with dejection, “But I don’t have a gun and I probably wouldn’t do that anyway. It is his pump after all.”

      Hoss and I stood next to the pump as Monika approached. “Lee phoned back. He talked with David. He will not be taking the pump.”

      But David’s call had added to my stress and mixed emotions about those helping us. My confusion and numbness would continue in the following days as we scrambled to improve our protection and waited for the fire to come.

      For the second straight day the fire was quiet. We could hardly see evidence of it—only small plumes of smoke from time to time. On these days my fear lessened, but we were warned that it was still out there and that it could not be stopped. Mark and Arlen flew in daily after circling and assessing the fire’s activity and growth. With each return of the helicopter we would drop whatever we were doing and walk to the edge of the propeller’s downdraft. Arlen, always smiling: “It’s just bubbling away.” Mark, confident and concerned, continued telling us that we were under evacuation order and that we should leave, assuring us that they could protect the buildings. We appreciated the constant updates, eager to learn all we could of the fire’s movement and proximity to us.

      Our gratitude and confidence in the Coastal Division of the BC Wildfire Service was being cemented. They were putting together an Incident Command (IC) to fight the fire but were competing for resources within the BC Wildfire Service because of the other fires raging in the province. Many ICs are groups of professionals that move as a unit. With VA0778, Mark, the incident commander, and Kerry from the Bella Coola field office were drawing resource people from within the Wildfire Service to form the IC. The number of people in the IC and their responsibilities can and often did vary. Basically it consisted of an operations chief responsible for ground and air activities (Arlen); logistics personnel (those who had to locate and obtain resources for fighting the fire: this included everything from chainsaw fuel to helicopters to crews of firefighters to bulldozers); a plans chief; a financial officer; and an information officer. In this IC, the desperate search for resources necessitated four people working in logistics.

      Four days into the fire, Mark had still been unable to acquire the resources he needed. He wanted helicopters to bucket the fire and firefighters to battle it on the ground. One of the problems was that VA0778 had started in the centre of Tweedsmuir Provincial Park. We understood that it was policy not to fight fires in provincial parks and ours was considered a remote area. We were surprised that they were doing anything for us. Mark and Arlen assured us that they would fight the fire and improve our structural protection; it was just a matter of when the resources would arrive.

      The lack of strong winds was giving us time. The fire was moving on two fronts. In the Atnarko Trench at the bottom end, close to the strikes, it was creeping both north and south, threatening a walking bridge across the river. (The bridge had recently been rebuilt after the previous one had been destroyed in the 2010 flood.) It was also heading up the Hotnarko Canyon toward us. We remained lucky that it stayed on the ground, finding its way around rock bluffs. It was constantly burning and advancing, but it was unable to access the tree crowns and move rapidly. Our concern increased when the fire, which had so far been active only on the north slopes of the Hotnarko Canyon, jumped the river. Now we were threatened along both sides of our narrow valley. Mark was trying to determine where his resources could best be deployed—once he had them.

      The structural protection at our place and the Taylor Ranch was still grossly inadequate. The cheap garden sprinklers that Arlen had brought to our place—they were all he had been able to get—were already beginning to malfunction. At the Taylor Ranch, the five sprinklers were on a single line serviced by a small backpack Forestry pump. There was not enough pressure to drive all the sprinklers at the same time. The Taylors’ house was some distance away from the ranch buildings and was not close to a good water supply. A couple of sprinklers provided by Troy had been set up there. The house at the top of the valley where Jade and Ryan were living, known by the firefighters as the Red Roof House, and the Mecham Cabin had no protection at all. Caleb asked for help from other friends in Anahim Lake. Lee and the owners of the Red Roof House bought two smaller pressure pumps each and more water hoses. It was a wonder that they found any. Pumps in British Columbia were rapidly being bought up and the price of them was rising. The pumps were flown to the Anahim Lake Airport and ferried down by the volunteers. Others also brought pumps and hoses. I took a spare hose from our place to the Taylor Ranch, where they were jerry-rigging hoses to fit pumps, and nozzles to fit hoses. David J, still committed to us, was in Anahim Lake installing a large tank onto his forwarder to provide water to protect both the Taylors’ and the Red Roof House.

      There was news of imminent relief from our trepidation when Mark flew in with Gord from Comox Fire Rescue. They asked to look around to assess our structural protection. The roller coaster of emotion I had been on since the beginning of the fire had brought me to near collapse. I did not bother to accompany them, and instead waited aimlessly for their return to the helicopter. They explained that there was still some difficulty getting the supplies into Bella Coola but assured us that they would have things worked out and they would come into the Precipice by truck the next day.

      Our lives were turned inside

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