But the flames weakened as they descended the slope where there was more shelter and less wind. It was also combatting wetter soils and straw. We were able to move in with our charred and ragged sacks to stop the fire before it reached the stranded tractor. I had a huge sense of pride in having contributed to the defeat of that fire.
I had three other brushes with out-of-control blazes. The first was when I tried to burn down an old house on my farm in the Fraser Valley. I had started dismantling the house piecemeal, but it seemed such a lot of work, and I thought putting a match to it would be easier. The garden hose I had readied for emergencies proved utterly useless. The flames flew high into the sky and started to spread to a nearby tree. I was able to dampen the fire as it licked up the branches, but I had to let the house burn out of control. Fortunately, it was over within an hour. I didn’t fear the fire itself, only worried about the repercussions of authorities descending on the farm, giving me holy shit and fining me an outrageous amount of money.
Twice in the Precipice we had land-clearing fires get out of control. There is only a very narrow window—sometimes a matter of days—between it being too wet to burn because of the snow, and too dangerous because the forest is tinder dry. On both occasions, by dint of a great deal of panicky exertion, we were able to subdue these fires, not without some damage to my pants, socks and long underwear as I attempted to stamp out the flames.
It was not these experiences that made me so indifferent to the Precipice Fire, however. I was not arrogant, thinking that I could fight any fire. I put it out of my mind just because I did not want to be bothered by it, especially when it seemed so far away.
Monika and I had been slowly creating a small farm in the Precipice. We engaged volunteers to help us with the chores and to build some infrastructure. Over the years we had constructed a barn, a chicken coop, a greenhouse, a recreational building (called the “pool room” because it housed a pool table), two cabins, and three sheds. In July 2017 we had two volunteers from a French wood engineering school who had arrived a couple of weeks earlier, and a couple who had been on our farm in the past and returned for two months. The four young people were bonding well and I planned on using their help to build a machine shed and a new root cellar. I wanted to get on with the summer and, as far as I was concerned, a fire was not a part of the equation.
Monika, a recent German immigrant to Canada, in her early sixties, grey hair, cool eyes, and classically German in her concern for detail, was aware that the winds of summer blew predominantly out of the southwest—putting us in a direct line with fire VA0778. She phoned Lee Taylor, the rancher who owned most of the valley. Lee, in his early seventies, had severely injured his right knee in the spring, and had been lifted out by helicopter. He was undergoing rehab in Vancouver under the close supervision of his wife, Pat. Lee—the most knowledgeable about the area and very proactive—phoned two helicopter services and the BC Wildfire Service to see if anyone was doing anything. West Coast Helicopters (with a base in Bella Coola) had seen the smoke but had not been able to get authorization to attack the fire. Whether they could have stopped it on that first day would be debated most of the summer. Lee desperately wanted to be in the valley to help protect our homes, but Pat wanted to ensure he recovered sufficiently from his injury before he returned.
The next day I continued to try ignoring the fire. We had just completed a first cut of hay on the meadow next to the house. Matilda and Florian, the French couple, were beginning the strawberry harvest. Tabi and Katie had arrived four days earlier and were settling in to one of the cabins. We have a greenhouse built in terraces against the slope of a hill, and I spent the morning watering, tying tomatoes and generally putting things in order. I planned to have Tabi and Katie look after the crops in there throughout the summer.
I heard a soft whine, an alien sound that I could not place. I exited the top of the greenhouse to search for the source. Tabi and Katie had purchased a small drone just before coming to the Precipice and were down in the meadow below the greenhouse, doing trial flights. They were trying to capture pictures of the plume of smoke that hovered on the western horizon. I was annoyed by the strange mechanical sound that had interrupted my work. Little did I know that mechanical sounds were to dominate our summer.
Late in the afternoon we heard the dull throbbing of a helicopter from White Saddle Air approach from the west, circle our meadows and begin a descent. At the time this was not a common event, and Monika and I walked with some excitement to the edge of the swirling downdraft. Two red-shirted Forestry people and the pilot came to greet us.
“Are you Monika who reported the fire?” asked one of the two women. “I’m Kerry from Forestry’s field office in Bella Coola, and this is Sally from the Cariboo District.”
“I’m Jim,” said the pilot. “This is my second trip to the Precipice this year. I was the one who airlifted Lee in the spring.”
We were never to have an unfriendly visit from the people involved with this fire. There would always be great concern for us, often with stern warnings about the dangers—the fire’s heat, its speed and its smoke. This first visit was typical. They had just flown around the fire and they asked who was in the valley. We told them that there were four volunteers with us, and Caleb was caretaking the Taylor Ranch four kilometres to the east. They advised us to leave. We explained that we and Caleb would not likely be going. Caleb had worked at the Precipice for many years but had recently left; however, due to Lee’s injury, he had been contracted to come back for the spring to feed the cows and keep the ranch running smoothly. He was reclusive, independent and resourceful, with a healthy disrespect for authority and an unbridled contempt for incompetence.
The third and easternmost property in the valley was occupied by Jade and Ryan, who had two small children. They were caretaking for the absentee owners but had left for holidays a few days before. That house, at the moment, was empty.
VA0778 suddenly made its presence felt. We turned to the west as one. A dark column of smoke rose dramatically in front of the declining sun, building rapidly and arching with the soft west wind. It was immediately captivating and alarming, yet foreign to Monika and me. It was our first encounter with one of the characteristics of wildfires—the “afternoon run.” The afternoon’s spiking heat, coupled with increasing winds, can drive a slumbering fire into a frenzy of fuel combustion within minutes.
“We’d better have a look at that, but we will also check in on Caleb,” Kerry said as they scrambled to the helicopter.
“The smoke can be horrific,” Sally warned. “If it gets very bad you should stay as close to the ground as possible and go into the water if necessary.” She nodded to the pond that had been built into our meadow.
The helicopter made its rattling takeoff, leaving Monika and me standing and staring at the dark, billowing plume of smoke. Any hope of quickly stopping the fire was gone. My chance of ignoring it also vanished.
We began taking some rudimentary precautions against a possible onslaught. We had the volunteers help fill sixteen-litre buckets with water and place them around the house, barn and hay shed. I connected garden hoses to the house and a standpipe by the barn, and checked that they could reach all sides of the buildings.
In the evening I went on the internet to try to find out what was happening. The wildfires dominated the headlines in British Columbia. A low-pressure weather system continued to cause dry lightning strikes, starting new fires. Strong winds fanned the existing ones. Two hundred and twenty wildfires were burning in the province, ninety-seven sparked on July 7 alone. Nearly ten thousand people were ordered to evacuate their homes in or around the towns of 100 Mile House, Ashcroft, Cache Creek, Princeton and Williams Lake. It was especially devastating to find that Lee’s Corner had been completely destroyed. It had been a popular stop for us on our trips to Williams Lake. We would rest and collect ourselves before continuing to town and a day of hectic shopping. However, I never had the carrot cake.