You’ll Never Forget Fighting a Forest Fire Firsthand

It’s unlikely that anyone who has seen a forest fire at close quarters, or helped fight one, soon forgets the experience.

The blaze which scalped Mount Douglas in Saanich in the 1960s was the single time I took my place in the fire lines. It provides a haunting memory to this day, composed not of crystal clear incidents, but rather a shadowy montage of colours, sounds and smells–a kaleidoscope of nature run wild.

The arcing red glow of an auxiliary policeman’s flashlight greet us at the lane leading to Mt. Douglas’s summit, late that second evening of the fire. Finally locating a parking space, wmy friends and I, all in our early 20s, walked back to the men and teenagers standing in groups about the nearest fire hydrant.

Shovels and picks leaned at crazy angles as their owners, many smoke-grimed and weary, others fresh arrivals like ourselves, discussed the inferno raging above. Only the fetid smell of burning forest reached us on this side of the hill.

Fire hoses snaked off into the darkness

Finally, a voice announced that the fire truck was coming down, we would ride up the mountain after it refilled its tanks at the hydrant. Red lights winking urgently, the giant lumbered into position and a faceless form in sweatshirt, denims and battered baseball cap leaped to the hydrant and expertly coupled the hose.

Although not a Saanich firefighter, he’d had plenty of practice that afternoon and evening. “I was on my way home from a Little League game when I saw smoke,” he said. “I thought I’d give a hand for a while.”

He hadn’t eaten since lunch.

Ready to go once more, the pumper began its winding ascent, six of us gripping anything we could at the back. It was an eerie ride into the centre of the forest fire. The smoke thickened as we climbed, attacking eyes, nostrils and lungs. Someone coughed. Another joked he’d never touch another cigarette.

Long minutes later, we reached the summit

Firefighters ghosted from the gloom, their blue shirts a dull purple in the macabre glow of the truck’s flashing lights. A weary fireman told us to follow the hose–it would take us to the front.

Grabbing shovels and picks, we stumbled along this canvas umbilical cord as it writhed over rocks near the Lookout, then descended into a grey void. Voices drifted through the smoke–orange flame was the only dash of colour in a world suddenly reduced to shades of black. The charred ground scorched the soles of our suede shoes and we instantly regretted not having worn heavy boots.

This wasn’t the Mt. Douglas we’d enjoyed climbing as kids. Gone were the thousands of broom bushes which had crowned its slopes; instead there was nothing but chalky ash or earth so cooked it resembled gunpowder. Now I really understood the devastating effect of a forest fire.

Gone, too, was the serenity shared each night by lovers and stargazers. The night was electric with the frenzied sounds of a mountain on fire. Where the familiar lights of the city had blinked from below, there was an impenetrable screen of smoke that smelled, to us, like burnt peanut butter.

I’ve never experienced peanut butter burning but I’m sure that’s what it must smell like!

All about, forms darted to and from tiny splashes of flames, beating them out with shovels, gunny sacks, even jackets. But the fire had finished its work of destruction here and moved down to the forest skirting the mountain’s southwestern face.

We struggled on, tripping over unburned roots coiled in the deep ash. It seemed a long, long time before we reached a wall of flames untended by the hundreds of firefighters, Civil Defence people and volunteers, many of whom had been labouring from the beginning.

Here, a centuries-old fir tree had been ring-cut by fire, its death chant a constant crackling as flames greedily devoured its volatile pitch.

Gagging on the smoke, eyes squinting against the intense heat, we unlimbered shovels and picks. In the next six hours, blisters grew, broke, bulged again. Shirts and pants, sieved in places by flying sparks, hung limp with sweat.

A silhouette in dark blue, flames glinting on his badge, stalked along the hose, muttered something about having “to see about that tree,” and continued on his lonely rounds.

Eyes watered continually, tears spider-webbed faces streaked black as coal miners

Despite the heat, labour and discomfort, good humour prevailed. Most worked silently but jokes abounded. Two young men discussed American politics and the ongoing racial violence in southern states, swinging their shovels all the while.

The worst problem was moss. The smouldering growth had to be cleared away before shovels could bite into solid earth to throw onto the flames. Glowing coals were stomped out by foot or spade, only to flare anew. Everywhere, the clanging of shovels striking rock rose above the fire’s roar.

Periodically, someone would shout for help in smothering a particularly stubborn blaze. Shadows would appear by his side as if by magic, help beat down the flames, then silently return to their own posts. One 15-year-old Junior Fire Warden labouring alongside us had seen the blaze from his home. He’d been working without rest, food and little drink since early that morning.

“It used to be so pretty here,” he murmured as he angrily hacked down a burning bush.

Another once-majestic fir flashed into flame, sending down a rosary of fire on the weary men below

Two more Saanich firefighters sweated by, on their way up the mountain. Somewhere in the darkness, fire had severed the hose.

The hours passed, the army of volunteers slowly but surely beating back the enemy. They were a long way from total victory but the end was in sight–if the next day didn’t bring another southwesterly wind which had originally fanned the forest fire out of control.

Most of our party had to work the next day so we broke off at 2 a.m., bedraggled and weary after our bout, and marvelling at the stamina of hundreds who’d been fighting all that day and night and were still in the front lines. We struggled down the mountain as another civil defence truck rolled into position, its crew hastily unravelling hose.

Those firemen meant but one thing to us–a drink from a leaking hose connection. The water tasted of canvas. But it was wet.

Exhausted volunteers and Saanich firefighters milled about in a driveway where the Deputy Chief had just delivered steaming black coffee and hamburgers from an all-night restaurant. The food disappeared swiftly, most remaining silent as they gazed mournfully up the mountainside where flames brighter than neon were crowning another ridge.

Every man there was painfully aware that this forest fire would scar one of Victoria’s favourite parks for years to come. And ashamed by the realization that many forest fires, including this one, are the result of human carelessness.

We clambered stiffly into the car and headed home for a hot bath and bed. Just down the road, a pumper was refilling, yet again, at a hydrant. We waved to its crew and drove on, leaving them to their grim work.

Farther on, we looked back. A tall fir near the second peak glowed dully through the smoke. Suddenly it flashed to orange as flames shot up its full length in a Roman candle of death.

Other posts of interest

See also:

Great Forest Fire of August 1938
Forest Ranger Oliver G. Clark Died in the Line of Duty
Spring Alert: Forest Fires Kill