Captured by Fire - Chris Czajkowski

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There was still a greenish glow along the mountain horizon but it was barely light enough to find our way to the waterfront to give the dogs a drink. “I think there’s going to be a frost tonight,” I said. A frost in July is not uncommon here. The Chilcotin Plateau is not that far north, but it lies between 1,000 and 1,300 metres in altitude, and the climate is dry enough to encourage temperature extremes between night and day.

      We spread our sleeping bags in our vehicles. Modern cars don’t have that long front seat like the old pickups used to have. In the van I had a box of tools between the two seats and attempted to cushion the bumps with a small foamie. It was a very uncomfortable night; in addition to the uneven surface, the van was not wide enough for me to stretch out properly. I had spent many a night this way at different times so knew I would survive. There was no room for me in the back. The dogs had only just enough space for themselves. I could have tied them up outside, but the last thing I wanted was for them to start barking and being a nuisance.

      I am an early riser and even in the summer am usually up at first light. But I didn’t want to disturb anyone—and there was indeed a sharp frost—so I stayed buried in my sleeping bag for as long as I could. When I emerged it was to find that Miriam had given in to the cold long before and was already in the lodge with a cup of coffee. The cook and Duncan were about, and we learned that Duncan’s wife, Angela, had in fact sat up late and waited for us. As soon as Katie in the Bella Coola Valley had received my email telling her we were on our way, she had been on the phone to them and said we might end up there. These people live forty minutes and two hours away respectively, but a neighbourhood like ours stretches many kilometres.

      Duncan steered us toward the staff shower block and the cook plied us with a gourmet breakfast. Duncan and Angela waited on us as if we were rich paying guests. Duncan would take no money for our stay. “Business is one thing,” he said. “But this I am doing for a friend.” I felt drained and empty. Everyone was being very kind. As a supremely independent person, I find it hard to accept kindness gracefully.

      We did the email/phone thing so Katie would know when to expect us. It would take at least two hours to drive to Stuie. We left the pickup and trailer in Duncan’s yard.

      It is a spectacular journey across the divide of the Coast Mountains. The road turns to gravel past Anahim Lake then climbs gently to its maximum height of 1,600 metres. From there, the landscape crashes down in waves of cliffs; the road clings to the mountainside and loses height through a series of hairpin bends. There are no barriers, and sometimes it is only a single lane wide, with fresh washouts taking bites off the edge. This is the famous Bella Coola Hill. But locals have no fear of this road; given the terrain, it is very well maintained. Sometimes it is closed for a few days in winter due to avalanches, and in the fall of 2010 it was cut off for six weeks due to horrendous flooding. But most of the closures have been due to fires. Between 2003 and 2010 (before the flood) we had year after year of fires. The top of the Hill is a favourite target for lightning strikes and, as we headed west, we drove through several areas of tree skeletons in various stages of disintegration.

      Going down the Hill takes one into a completely different world. Great coastal fir, cedar and hemlock over a metre thick at the butt dwarf the string of buildings that Katie and Dennis call home. The land drops down a bank in front of the buildings, then soars up great craggy mountain faces to an altitude of about 2,000 metres. Sir Alexander McKenzie was the first recorded person to cross the North American continent (beating Lewis and Clark by twelve years) and he ended up a short distance downriver from Stuie. As he breasted the pass to come down into the valley, he saw in front of him “a stupendous mountain.” Thus Stupendous Mountain received its name.

      Miriam and I chose our cabins and settled in. Out with the laptop and a check on the fire sites and news. The Williams Lake Tribune now had more stories. The 108 Fire had started south and west of the subdivision. A shallow, grassy valley separated the burning forest from the houses, but the fire didn’t let that stop it. It licked over the grass and consumed two homes. More houses had been lost in the Riske Creek area between Lee’s Corner and Williams Lake. There was a story about the tow-truck driver’s house near Riske Creek. He has occasionally fetched my vehicles for repair in Williams Lake, there being no other BCAA tow truck closer. They managed to save the house but the unclaimed vehicle yard discreetly hidden behind trees was not so lucky. “The gas tanks all exploded like bombs,” a witness stated.

      Another article showed smoky pictures of cows, driven by grim-faced cowboys on horseback. They were escorted by a phalange of police cars. Only a fraction of the livestock had so far been found; their summer feed and most of the hayfields had been lost. There were more pictures of the ravaged Lee’s Corner; the empty hole where the restaurant had been. Both north and south of Williams Lake several different fires were causing problems. One moment evacuees were told to go north to Prince George, the next they were steered south to Kamloops. The Elephant Hill Fire had blasted through Nlaka’pamux (Ashcroft Reserve), destroying many homes, and was travelling rapidly north.

      The Precipice lightning strikes were about twenty kilometres east of Stuie. According to the fire websites, a steep rocky wall had steered the flames away from the river five kilometres from Fred and Monika’s, and it seemed to have eased off a little. It was not moving much downriver toward Katie and Dennis.

      The Central Coast Regional District was already issuing reports about the Precipice Fire. (There had been none from the CRD regarding Kleena Kleene.) The CCRD iterated that, despite a great difficulty in rounding up resources, twenty-two firefighters, three sprinkler experts and three helicopters had been deployed on the Precipice Fire. There was a heliport forty minutes down valley from Stuie, and helicopters flew back and forth over our cabins several times a day. Most of them trailed buckets and slings of equipment. Fred told me later that he had not observed them at the Precipice itself, so they must have been working closer to the bottom end of their fire at the Stillwater.

      Miriam and I were now welcomed and comfortable in Katie and Dennis’s beautiful home. The fire and its possible consequences, though looming large in my mind, were now remote. But we had a more immediate problem. How was Miriam going to get home?

      Large stretches of Highway 20 were of no danger to anyone. Even through the fire zones it was being kept open for emergency responders and for evacuees heading east. All non-official westbound traffic, however, was blocked. This meant that I could take Miriam to Williams Lake, but I would not be allowed back home. It was possible I could arrange another ride for her, via someone who was not returning, or even the RCMP, but it would not be very useful as Williams Lake itself was now being evacuated and her bus would therefore not be running.

      Two other travel options were to fly or to go by ferry. Pacific Coastal Airlines offered two flights from Bella Coola to Vancouver every day. From there, Miriam could catch a bus whose route would be well away from the fire zones. Miriam got onto the airline’s website. The company offers random seats for as low as two hundred dollars, though the normal price is twice as much. When she saw that a seat for two hundred fifty dollars was available in two days’ time, that seemed ideal. Darn, she had left her credit card in her cabin. By the time she had retrieved it and signed on again, the cheap seat had gone. The only place left would cost her four hundred fifty dollars. “I guess everyone’s trying to get out of here as fast as they can,” Katie commented.

      The ferry was a sporadic service in 2017, but one was slated to leave the following day to Bella Bella, which is ninety kilometres west of Bella Coola. From there one has to go either north to Prince Rupert or south to Vancouver Island; the destination depends on which way the Inside Passage ferry is sailing. Wherever she arrived, Miriam would have to find overland transport to link her with a bus route. Either trip would take two or three days and would not be cheap. As well as the boat fares, she would also have to find food and accommodation.

      The BC Ferries website is hard to fathom and Katie spent some time assisting Miriam to navigate through it. It turned out that the Inside Passage ferry was heading north. She would arrive late in Bella Bella and leave early the following morning. She would also arrive late in Prince Rupert and have to be at the railway station early to catch the train. Where would she stay on those nights? She would need taxis to get to and from hotels. But Katie put her thinking cap on and came up with a couple of people who might

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