Stories From The Firestorm

The day the fire started, another firefighter and I drove the rescue boat to Rattlesnake Island to retrieve the twentyfive Forestry fellows fighting the fire in the park. When we came around the corner, I thought, Holy shit. It was massive. The smoke tower made me realize this wasn't the brush fire we thought it was. It was amazing to watch something burn that fast in the open. We weren't involved in fighting it until it got to the city limits. Thursday morning, August 21, we spent the day scouting the Timberline area, trying to figure out which houses we could save. I saw a four-byeightfoot sign written by a kid that said, "Please save our home." At another house on Rimrock Road, people had left a cooler just off the edge of their porch. The sign said, "Thanks firefighters help yourselves." It was a cooler full of pop. I was driving home Thursday night with a crew when the fire jumped the guard. I went blitzing back up there. We were told there's no point going in. It was out of control and everyone was pulling back. There weren't any exits or good water supplies. You could end up trapped. We spent the whole night setting up big monitors heavy lines with 500- to 1,000gallonaminute nozzles that are mounted on a truck or the ground. We soaked the trees and pumped water into a ravine all night to make a firebreak. We basically drained the reservoir. There were bears around and all sorts of coyotes. We thought maybe if we got everything wet enough, the fire would never come up there. Friday afternoon, Platoon Captain Len Moody diverted us down to the Okaview and Stellar Road area. I had two out-of-town crews from Keremeos and North Cowichan. One house was on fire on Stellar, probably from burning embers. We set up and started knocking it down. The whole area is on a bank. Little spot fires were breaking out in hedges and on fences. The guys were scooting all over, knocking these fires down. There was a set of steps that went up to Curlew Drive. I hiked up there to get a better view of what was going on below. It was smoky but still tolerable. Everything went calm. Then the smoke started coming down and I had a hard time breathing. As fast as I went down those steps, the smoke was coming down on me. It reminded me of what it's like in a house fire when you can't see the guy next to you. Everyone hunkered down around a truck on Stellar. It was dark at 5:00 in the afternoon. Then the noise started, like a jet or a freight train. We couldn't breathe. We all got on our bellies on the lawn trying to suck the air out of the grass. Men were vomiting all over the place. The wind started and then everything lit up and got orange. Whatever was coming, we knew it was big trouble. The fire had to be right above us and awful close. You could hear things all around you, like special effects on a war program. The fire was actually throwing big balls of flaming pine cones and pine needles in front of it. They were exploding on the ground all around us. They'd hit the pavement or grass like missiles. The firestorm was going over us and throwing projectiles. Because I smoke I can probably take a lot more smoke than most of the guys. But I was ready to black out because I couldn't get air. Every time I took a gasp, my throat and lungs burned. I was coughing up crap for weeks. Breathing apparatus and night suits wouldn't have helped, the way we were working. They're for inside structure fires. When the smoke and flames passed over us, Captain Moody came on the radio and said, "Shawn, it's time you got yourself out of there." I gave him some smart remark like &Freake, Ross is the author of 'Stories From The Firestorm', published 2004 under ISBN 9780771047701 and ISBN 0771047703.