in the early 1980s) and another to the greenhouse. The greenhouse was at the very edge of our property right next to the forest. David J had fought forest fires in the past and suggested we fall trees above the greenhouse. I cast my eyes across the slope of well-spaced pine sprinkled with the statelier Douglas fir. It was an area that I was very attached to, having spent nearly eight years removing beetle-killed trees, building log fences and cutting trails. I knew there was a danger to the greenhouse but I decided to leave things as they were. The hose extended just beyond the greenhouse. With the proper nozzle, the system could throw water thirty metres into the forest. In my naïveté, I figured that was protection enough. David J allowed that if I kept the forest floor wet I might be able to get away with it. I had brief visions of standing firm against a raging blaze. My ten-year-old self was rising to the challenge. But when I tried using the hose, I realized how difficult it was going to be manipulating it single-handedly through stumps, fence and trees, while fighting the pressure of the water.
Monika and I were dazed by the pressure. We had nothing but our green meadows to protect us. We had no idea how we would save our place if the fire came upon us as, driven by the westerly winds, it surely would. Our four volunteers huddled in a group next to the garden, debating whether to stay or to abide by the evacuation order. Their loyalty to us was evident, and their emotions torn. Katie’s dad was a firefighter from Manchester, England, who had already been apprised of the wildfires in British Columbia and had seen pictures of the destruction. He was unequivocal. “Get the hell out of there,” he had emailed her. “It’s not your decision to make.”
Hans was returning to Bella Coola, and he offered the volunteers a ride to Anahim Lake where we arranged for them to stay with friends in case the situation calmed down and they could come back. Hoss remained to help make our place more fire safe. David J returned to Anahim Lake to locate more structural protection equipment. Troy and Lorrein spent the night at the Taylor house. By late afternoon the violent plume of smoke from the fire began to settle and a degree of calmness came with it.
Fire Smart
Chris
Kleena Kleene, July 9
Miriam, the friend I had picked up in Williams Lake, is no stranger to fires. She and her husband, Quincy, live near Lac La Ronge in northern Saskatchewan. The province used to fight fires diligently, but now enormous conflagrations are left to burn unless they directly threaten communities. “Our fires,” Miriam told me, “are not measured in hectares, but in square kilometres. Because of your hills,” she added, “you can see your fires and have a much better idea of where they are. In flat land, a plume of smoke might be two kilometres away or twenty kilometres—it is impossible to judge.”
Miriam and Quincy had built a cabin on an island in another lake, twelve kilometres from the nearest road. In June 2015, a friend of theirs was staying in the cabin, which had no phone or internet. Quincy and Miriam had checked out the fire maps and noted that one of a series of fires was less than ten kilometres from the cabin. Next thing, they received a tearful phone call from their friend, who had been evacuated to a hotel. She had been so scared that she had not dared fall asleep in case she did not wake up. The friend was safe, but the next day’s fire map showed the cabin had been engulfed. Miriam later wrote to me, “Our kayak, the cabin, the dog yard, the outhouse, the woodshed, the staircase down to the lake, the jack pines, the spruce trees, the Labrador tea, the grasses by the shore, the grouse sitting on her eggs, the little owl hunting mice, the lichen on the rock, the deep green moss—they were all left behind.
“I stare at the fire map, [our lake] surrounded by red, but I can’t believe what I see. And I couldn’t believe it until we stood on the scorched soil and sifted through the grey ashes of what used to be the dream of a wilderness home.”
Quincy maintains water bombers, and as their house had not been in the fire’s path, he had returned to work. His sister came and looked at the trees surrounding the house. “That one, that one and that one has to go,” she said.
“No!” Miriam replied. “The fire won’t come here.” But she kept staring at the tall balsam fir that was right behind her bedroom window. She tied a rope as high as she could on the tree, and with straps she tried to pull it away from the house. She knew that straps alone would not work well, but she didn’t have a come-along. She cut down the tree with her chainsaw. It hit the roof and tore a few shingles off. She trailered away brush load after brush load to a nearby gravel pit and cut down more trees. She knew it was futile, there were just too many, but she could not sit and do nothing. She kept working, pulling away grass and twigs close to the house. In the end the fire was diverted from their property and the house was saved.
After our hike on the dunes on July 8, Miriam stepped into her sister-in-law’s shoes and looked critically at my home. “The biggest problem,” she allowed, “is the open sides around the deck. Sparks can be blown underneath and ignite the dry sawdust and debris under there.” Some parts of the deck are over a metre off the ground. It is not a regular shape, but built in a bit of a curve. I did not have much in the way of materials suitable for walling it in at such short notice, but then I remembered the tarps. Over the years I had accumulated a large pile of woven, blue plastic tarps, now badly frayed and full of holes. I have lived so long without money and far from services that I have a very hard time throwing anything away. The tarps were in such bad condition, though, that every time I noticed them stuffed under the guest cabin I kept thinking I really must take them to the dump. Now I dragged them out and we stapled and nailed them to the deck, weighing down the skirts with rocks. By doubling them up we were able to obviate the worst of the holes.
The woodshed attached at the other end of the house was also open at the bottom, designed that way to allow air to circulate and dry any wet wood that might be stored in there. We swathed the lower regions with more tarps. Plastic isn’t going to stop a flame, but winds often gust furiously around the house and it might just be enough to deter a swirling spark. Miriam also carted away interesting roots I have collected to decorate the area. This is the sixth cabin I have built, but the only one in which heavy machinery was used. The silt dug out to make the basement was piled around the hole and, though a lot of what was left was removed, a wide circle of ground surrounding the house is as barren as the Sahara Desert. Year after year I have tried to grow something on it to stop the flying dust, but I don’t have enough water in my paltry well to nurture it, and little has survived. Hence roots and rocks for decoration. This sterile apron, however, now had a great advantage. There was a large open space free of vegetation around my home.
When I logged the small hill to create the building site, I had left a few pines for shade. I had taken down anything that had leaned toward the place where the house was going to be, partly because I knew how strong the local winds could blow, and partly because, should the unthinkable happen and I had to cut down trees to save the building, each could be toppled easily, with no danger to the faller. I didn’t want to annihilate my shade unnecessarily though, so I left these pines standing for the time being.
In the afternoon, we drove to downtown Kleena Kleene. A couple of other locals were parked beside the hayfields. The wind was not all that strong and, though the fires had spread a little, they still seemed unthreatening. One onlooker made a living operating heavy machinery, and he talked about trying to rustle up a water tank and some pumps, and a couple of skidders to build fireguards. The government frowns upon lay people taking problems such as fires into their own hands,
