Sitkaspruce
Well-Known Member
I just got back from 16 days of fighting fire in Bella Coola.
This is a rather long report with some picts.
Went up to do some road decativation prescritions on July 27th and ended up staying until Monday, Aug 10th. On July 28th it was 37.5 c which broke the old recoed for temp in the valley, the next day it was 41.3, hottest in Canada, so I decided to stay, at least for the weekend....just in case.
On July 3oth we had a good lightening show move through and light a few small fires, which we actioned with an IA crew. On the night of the 31st we had two shows move through the valley, including one that scared the Sh$t out of me as 4 strikes hit the tarmac....flash...boom all in a second or so. Never been woke up like that before
So I sat and watch the other three hit the tarmac, that was friggin cool!!!!!
The next day we had numerous targets throughout the valley and on the outside; South Bentick, King island and other spots. There was two IA crews, myself, a co worker, two heli's and a 5 pack contract crew to action all the fires.
The two that would end up being the big ones both started as small strikes and continued to be actioned by heli's. Too steep for crews to action.
The one that caused the 64 houses to be evacuated started on a cliff and just continued to burn, thanks to the hot weather and dry, hot westerlies.
Here it is the first afternoon/evening
All the photos are from the Mid-Coast Fire base by the airport in Hagensborg
That night, the fire came down the hill to within 50m of three homes, so myself and the 5 pack crew spent a long night keeping the fire at bay while trying to set up the sprinkler system for the houses. It was a long 26 hour shift.
The next morning, just above the houses.
This fire caused the evacuation of 64 homes along highway 20 and closed the highway down for long periods of time.
Over the next couple of days, we ended up getting 59 FF from Alberta, 2 type 1 BC unit crew's, a 20 person contract crew, a bunch of stat hires, three pieces of equipment and 9 helis, including this big bugger, in the valley to help battle the fires.
When I left, the Nuxalks Mt fire was 350+ ha and the Salloompt Mt fire was 140+ ha, the rains had come and we had the upper hand on both fires.
Up the valley near Tweedsmuir Lodge we had three fires burning, including this one tha we were not actioning and going to just let burn, as it is across the river and well away from any structures.
I have to say that the people of the Bella Coola Valley are an amazing group, they cooked our meals, supplied tons of food on the line, were very helpful and patient and are a resilient bunch. The local Fire Departments were simply amazing with keeping us in water the first night and for day after.
Special Kudos goes out the Snootlie Creek Hatchery Staff and DFO as they, along with the FD's, kept up the water supply for the FF 24 hours a day for three days straight and paid their workers for their effort. They even flew in a couple CG cooks to cook meals for them, got me three 4" high volume pumps from other hatcheries and delivered them to me, all free of cost.
All in all it was another fun few weeks were I could put aside my regular job and do something I love doing. The thing that sucks is it looks like I missed some pretty incredable fishing at home......well there is always next year.
Cheers
SS
This is a rather long report with some picts.
Went up to do some road decativation prescritions on July 27th and ended up staying until Monday, Aug 10th. On July 28th it was 37.5 c which broke the old recoed for temp in the valley, the next day it was 41.3, hottest in Canada, so I decided to stay, at least for the weekend....just in case.
On July 3oth we had a good lightening show move through and light a few small fires, which we actioned with an IA crew. On the night of the 31st we had two shows move through the valley, including one that scared the Sh$t out of me as 4 strikes hit the tarmac....flash...boom all in a second or so. Never been woke up like that before
So I sat and watch the other three hit the tarmac, that was friggin cool!!!!!The next day we had numerous targets throughout the valley and on the outside; South Bentick, King island and other spots. There was two IA crews, myself, a co worker, two heli's and a 5 pack contract crew to action all the fires.
The two that would end up being the big ones both started as small strikes and continued to be actioned by heli's. Too steep for crews to action.
The one that caused the 64 houses to be evacuated started on a cliff and just continued to burn, thanks to the hot weather and dry, hot westerlies.
Here it is the first afternoon/evening
All the photos are from the Mid-Coast Fire base by the airport in Hagensborg
That night, the fire came down the hill to within 50m of three homes, so myself and the 5 pack crew spent a long night keeping the fire at bay while trying to set up the sprinkler system for the houses. It was a long 26 hour shift.
The next morning, just above the houses.
This fire caused the evacuation of 64 homes along highway 20 and closed the highway down for long periods of time.
Over the next couple of days, we ended up getting 59 FF from Alberta, 2 type 1 BC unit crew's, a 20 person contract crew, a bunch of stat hires, three pieces of equipment and 9 helis, including this big bugger, in the valley to help battle the fires.
When I left, the Nuxalks Mt fire was 350+ ha and the Salloompt Mt fire was 140+ ha, the rains had come and we had the upper hand on both fires.
Up the valley near Tweedsmuir Lodge we had three fires burning, including this one tha we were not actioning and going to just let burn, as it is across the river and well away from any structures.
I have to say that the people of the Bella Coola Valley are an amazing group, they cooked our meals, supplied tons of food on the line, were very helpful and patient and are a resilient bunch. The local Fire Departments were simply amazing with keeping us in water the first night and for day after.
Special Kudos goes out the Snootlie Creek Hatchery Staff and DFO as they, along with the FD's, kept up the water supply for the FF 24 hours a day for three days straight and paid their workers for their effort. They even flew in a couple CG cooks to cook meals for them, got me three 4" high volume pumps from other hatcheries and delivered them to me, all free of cost.
All in all it was another fun few weeks were I could put aside my regular job and do something I love doing. The thing that sucks is it looks like I missed some pretty incredable fishing at home......well there is always next year.
Cheers
SS
