February 8

I just had a thought this morning - yes I get 'em once in a while. I will start another serial using one of the longer stories from one of my books. If anyone gets intrigued here is a link to where my books are.
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=984681

This story is about one of the more memorable fires that I fought in my Assistant Forest Ranger days. The short introduction sets the stage.

FIRE IN THE RAUSH!

The summer of 1958 was one of those long, hot and dry summers that come along every few years, sometimes here and sometimes there.    This time, the here and there was in British Columbia’s Rocky Mountains and for me was the Ranger District of McBride.  We logged 48 fires that summer and I was either in charge of or assisted on every one of them.  Several of those fires are memorable, each for its own unique reason but one stands out over all the others; yes it was a tough one, and yes there was danger – for all.  But for me it was about the things I learned, things about life, about people and about myself.

Chapter 1 - Discovery and Preparation.

The day the fire was discovered I was several miles west of the town of McBride looking for another fire that was located deep in a heavy stand of old growth cedar. I had started at 5 am with a crew of five.  Around 11 am we had just located the fire when I got a call on my portable radio; I was needed on another fire.  This was not a particular problem as the present fire was a single lightning strike that had ended up igniting a total of four of the large, partly hollow trees and could easily be contained.  I left my radio and one person in charge, then heading across country blazed a trail out to the road and my Jeep truck.  I got to the office about two hours later. The lookout man on the tower situated directly above the town had spotted a large quantity of smoke coming from a side valley through which the Raush River flowed.  A spotter plane had been requested and was waiting for me at a docking spot on the Fraser River.

  To clarify my role, the McBride District had a staff of seven, a Ranger, an Assistant Ranger, a dispatcher, two lookout men, a summer Assistant Ranger headquartered at Tete Jaune Cache 30 miles a way and a Deputy Ranger at Valemount 45 miles away.  I was the McBride Assistant, Cy, the Ranger was 63 years old and holding on for retirement!

  The pilot of the plane was one I had flown with many times before, so after a quick hello and a look at my map, we taxied to the middle of the river and took off.  Bill, the pilot, was one of those pilots that although very skillful, had a bit of a “devil may care” attitude, so flying with him was almost always a bit of an adventure.  As soon as we were airborne the smoke in the Raush valley was quite visible and I knew it was going to be a bit more than just a spot fire.  About 15 minutes passed before we had the fire in sight.  It was directly between the two main forks of the river, high on the mountainside and burning with open flame near timberline.  Circling the fire at low elevation was not possible due to the steepness of the valley walls and the narrowness of the valley itself.  However getting a close and detailed view of the fire site was not what was uppermost in my mind.  We were some 18 miles past the end of the road.   The river snaked back and forth between almost perpendicular valley walls and all along its course there were swamps and meadows between many of its bends.  Slide chutes commencing from the threatening ice cliffs so high above were prevalent along the entire valley. How were we going to access the fire with men, tools and supplies?  We went further up the main valley a few miles to where it widened enough so that Bill could pull a tight sliding turn.  When we got back to the fork where the fire was, I had him slow the plane as much as possible and lower it until we were about 200 feet above the tree tops.  We then zigzagged down the valley following the river while checking for game trails, openings, and obstacles, anything that would add to or detract from an access route.  As we went I made notations on a map, so busy that I was surprised when we reached the mouth of the valley where the only road from the highway ended at a logging camp and sawmill.  This would be our jumping off point.

  On arriving back in McBride, I advised the Ranger of the location of the fire, its estimated size (15 acres) and the difficulty of access.  We decided that I should contact a local hunting guide to see how many horses he had available and then with him scout out a route.  We knew that with every hour the fire would be growing and with its growth the task of controlling it would be increasing as well. 

  The guide, Slim Henry, lived about 30 miles out of town on a bit of a “stump ranch”. In the past I had used him on other fires as a cook and he was the best open fire camp cook I had ever known.  I hightailed it out to his place and though I was in a hurry, Slim never hurried and we had to talk over a cup of coffee.  I filled him in on the situation and as I talked, he smoked, drank his coffee and listened quietly.  Slim was a relic of the past, tall, lean, spoke with a drawl that was a remnant of his younger days on ranches in Montana. On his head indoors or out, his head was adorned by a worn old Stetson.

  He thought a bit and finally allowed that he could have five pack horses delivered to the mill in a couple of days and yep he could go ahead with me while they were being delivered.  We settled on the price; a dollar and a half per horse per day, and he would be paid cook’s wages for the duration.  I agreed to pick him up the next morning at 4 am.  We planned that we would locate trail for one full day so that he and the horses would have something to start on while I completed the trail location once the horses were ready.     The next morning after picking Slim up we were heading upriver on foot at about 5 am.  The first few miles went by easily as we had some logging skid roads to utilize; they ended at a large meadow that was traversed by a game trail and eventually led us to a moose fording spot and there crossed the Raush. We continued up river following a well-used trail.  By noon we had made about ten miles when we came to a large opening that had a profusion of willow and other small brush growing amongst boulders, logs and other debris.  It was the termination point of a snow chute; the well-defined trail abruptly ended, lesser trails lead off in all directions.  I climbed a few feet up a tree to have a look around and there not two hundred feet away was a huge grizzly rooting about in a small open area!  Much faster than I went up, I came down, I whispered to Slim and we slowly and quietly retraced our steps until we were well back in the trees.  We knew we couldn’t take the horses through the mess that was out there; we didn’t want to get into a dispute over territory and when the horses got there we didn’t need grizzly scent getting them all excited.

  There really was no choice so we headed straight down towards the riverbank and after a bit of scouting about found a reasonable spot for a ford.  On the other bank we found the moose had also been there although the trail here was not as well defined.  Slim at this point figured we had enough trail located and as we had to do some improvement on the place where we had backtracked we re-crossed the river and headed downstream.  As we went we de-limbed larger trees, cutting out small trees and windfall until we were back to the main game trail.

  It was mid-afternoon when we got back to the first ford and we immediately noticed that the river was well over a foot higher than when we had crossed earlier!  Slim said that we better get across while the getting was good.  It was obvious that with the heat of the day coming on, there was more melt happening up in the glaciers and consequently the flow of water had greatly increased.  We realized that this would be a daily event and in the evenings as the cold took over at the high elevations, the river would drop again during the night.  This phenomenon would prove significant to us on more than one occasion over the next few weeks.

  When we finally got back to the sawmill, we found that three of Slim’s horses had been delivered and were tethered out in a small grassy area. He quickly made some makeshift hobbles and turned them loose.  This was the only grass in sight and he was content that they would stay there.  I drove him home and arrived back in McBride about 8 p.m., said hi to my family, set my alarm clock for six the next morning and went straight to bed.

  After breakfast the next morning, I walked across the yard to the Ranger Station and started making a list of everything I thought I might need.  I figured a twelve man crew to start with; there was no way to calculate how big the fire would be when we got there and as everything would be on horse and man backs, weight and bulk were both considerations.  We would take in sufficient food for 10 days and bring in more as necessary. We had standard mess kits and grocery lists for 6, 12 and 20 man crews.  We would need two tents for the men plus a small tent for the cook. Blankets were stored in 10 blanket bundles, so four bundles would be adequate.  Hand tools for 12 men would be six shovels, six pulaski tools, two double bitted axes, one swede saw, four five-gallon back pumps, 12 packboards and an industrial first aid kit.  As it was unlikely that the portable radios that were just becoming standard equipment would be able to contact McBride, we would have to take a “Model B Radio”.  This was an am radio of about 10” x 10” x 16” in size and with its battery pack and 100’ of copper antennae wire weighed about 12 pounds.  By the time I had this planning completed and started gathering some of the stuff together, the Dispatcher and Ranger were both arriving.  Cy, the Ranger, having been in McBride for many years was able to do some telephoning to round up a few crewmen. It was too early to hit the local beer parlor for conscripts, so I headed out to a couple of our local sawmills.  On the way I checked an old barn that transients from the railroad often flopped at between trains. There I found two fellows who seemed reasonably fit, one a French Canadian of about 35 – 40 and the other a huge Finnish guy of about the same age.  I was able, without using my authority, to pry loose four more men from two mills.  Cy, I found on my return had gathered up a total of four more.  Counting Slim this brought us to eleven.  While I had been driving around, I realized that if Slim was going to act as both cook and wrangler, we would need a couple more than the 12.  I headed a few miles out of town to where our former lookoutman lived and  got him to agree to come along (providing he could bring his dog).  Nearby to his place was a fellow I knew of that spent a lot of time just wandering the bush and the mountains but was also a pretty good faller.  I hired him as a 'power-saw operator with saw'. I knew we could not possibly be all organized and be on our way that day, so we arranged for that part of the crew that were in town to be at our office at five the next morning and the others would be picked up on the way.  I picked up the groceries and loaded all the equipment (made a few adjustments including chain saw gas and oil) and drove it all out to the sawmill where we would start off on foot.  I was back home by six p.m., so was able to shower, eat, pack my personal gear and have a quiet evening.

Chapter 2 - Packing up and packing in.

Before I continue, it may be worthwhile to try and impart sort of a picture of the crew I was taking along on this  “wilderness jaunt”.  In the order of which they were hired for this foray we first meet Slim (again).

Slim- One of those people who could have been almost any age, but was probably about 60, been a horse wrangler and guide most of his life, lean, tough, humorous, capable of hard work but usually found the easiest way.

Frenchy – 35 to 40 years old, a drifter, tough, quiet, probably an ex con, wending his way to Vancouver to spend the winter.

Holgar – 35 to 40 years old, also a drifter, strong as a bull, angry, lazy, devious also wending his way to Vancouver for the winter.

George – about 30 years old, lived in McBride all his life, logger and millworker, often unemployed.

Harry - about 50 years old, family man, millworker (lumber piler), steady, quiet.

Jim – about 20, always broke, moves from job to job, born and raised in McBride, good worker.

Greg – about 45, Jim’s dad, faller in the winter, log bucker in the summer, good worker, always employed.

Bob – about 45, works hard when he’s sober, sings a lot, goes on 3-month binges.

Jack – Bob’s friend, works a bit when he’s sober, usually just enough until he can afford booze.

Hank – Cy’s next door neighbor’s son, 18 years old, he’s with us because his Dad said so.

Billy – about 25, does odd jobs, lives with his mother, not a bad guy but little ambition.

Scotty – about 63, former lookoutman, loved to drink, terrific sense of humor, fair cook.

Ben – about 30, works hard when he works, half native, good in the bush and a good faller.

Coco – Scotty’s four-year-old chocolate colored cocker spaniel, a friendly little female.

As for me – 24 years old, Assistant Ranger for 3 years, good in the bush, fighting fire since I was 15.

  Crowded into the Ranger’s suburban and my Jeep pick-up we all arrived around six am the next morning, each person in a different frame of mind with Holgar being the most taciturn.  Slim had arrived on his own a few minutes ahead of the rest of us and had his horses all tethered and packsaddles arranged near each horse.  With each horse taking about 150 to 180 pounds, the burdens for the men were down to just a few pounds each.  In about an hour we were on the trail, me in the lead and Slim and his horses bringing up the rear.

  The main objective was to get to the fire that day. With this size of a crew and looking after horses I didn’t want to camp along the way.  The first few hours went by without incident. We stopped for a ten-minute breather once each hour and made pretty fair progress.  By the time we got to the first ford at midday, I realized that we were going to have to make some adjustments.  Jack, Holgar and Scotty in that order had fallen behind and were now trailing the last horse.  We crossed the river without incident, Coco included, but as we were getting ready to head out again, Scotty came up to me and said, "I don't know if I can make it, maybe I should go back.”

   I said, “ You can’t go back, you can’t go on your own and I can’t spare anyone to go with you.” I added, “we’re about halfway, you’ll be fine.”

  After another couple hours, I knew that the time for making adjustments was now and I couldn’t wait any longer.

  I called a halt; it took about 10 minutes for everyone to get together as we were now strung out along the trail.  I told them we would take a half-hour break and then we would break up into two groups.  Scotty was in terrible shape, his legs were visibly shaking, his color wasn’t great and he just flopped down against the trunk of a tree.

   I had a little “conflab” with Slim and Harry, I explained I didn’t want to break us up, but if we didn’t do something, it would be the next day before we got to the fire and spending the night on the trail would only exacerbate the situation.  I couldn’t leave Slim on his own with the horses and the slowest of our group; if a problem developed he would be between a rock and a hard place.  Slim, kind of looked sideways at me from under his old Stetson and said, “ I can get Scotty along a little bit better, if you leave him to me.”

  “ How are you going to do that?” I asked.

  “ Well, I think its better if you don’t know, I know you get right upset if anyone brings booze onto the fireline.” he said with a little smile.  I opened my mouth then closed it again, looked for a moment and just gave him a nod.

   I already had it worked out in my head how best to solve our dilemma, so I motioned to the two of them and we moved back to the group.  I explained that we would have to split up. One group would hurry ahead and once that group got to the vicinity of the fire, some would return to help the second group and the rest would set up camp.

   I said, “ Here’s who’s coming ahead with me; Frenchy, Holgar, George, Greg, Bob, Hank, Billy and Ben, we will take one horse the rest of you will stay with Slim and the other horses.” 

  Holgar immediately started to protest, saying he needed to go slow. 

  So I said, “ this isn’t a request, if you want to go slow, then head back down the trail and find your way back to McBride - alone!”  He glared at me, mumbled in Finnish, gave a shrug and said nothing more.

  Slim chose a horse; we repacked it with the tents, blankets and the mess kit, Scotty’s personal gear all went onto my pack while Bob said he would take Jack’s gear.  We had now wasted almost ¾ of an hour so we headed out, I was again in the lead and Ben brought up the rear with the horse.   I told Bob to stay close to Holgar and to keep him moving.  Coco appeared to have forgotten whom she belonged to and tagged along with us.

 We made good progress; although two incidents occurred that are worth the telling, both have a serious and a humorous side.

 By the time we got to the second ford, the river was again in afternoon flood. It was almost waist deep and running fast. Everyone went in and quickly made it through the deepest spot and waited for the next person.  The dog jumped in when I went and although she was sort of swept away, she just swam straight and came out a hundred yards downstream.  When it came to Holgar’s turn he balked and wouldn’t go in, so I shouted for him to wait until last and hang on to the horse.   The horse went by him, he didn’t grab on and as he realized he was last, he quickly jumped in.  I don’t know where Holgar had found his pants, but even on his large frame they were too big and the crotch was almost to his knees.  The current ballooned his pants like an underwater sail and he started to try and go against the current!  Ben yelled, “Grab the horses tail!” Holgar ignored him and first slowly, then faster and faster started to drift downstream with the current!  He was yelling, and flailing his arms all about and then fell over.  I dropped my pack and ran down along the river until I got ahead of him and then waded out. As he went by I was able to grab a pant leg; the current then aided me in swinging him into the shallower water.  Man, was he mad!  Of course we all started to laugh, which didn’t help improve anything.  He stripped down, wrung out his clothes and we were back on the trail in a few minutes.

  The next incident was about an hour later.  We came to a small creek with a steep bank on the far side, ok for moose but not good enough for laden horses to try and get up and across.  I told everyone but Ben to take a break and then he went along the creek towards the river and I went in the opposite direction.  If we hadn’t found a good crossing in 15 minutes we would meet back where we started. 

 Before we had arrived at this creek I had noticed that there were very fresh moose tracks going in the opposite direction, I also noted that the moose had turned and retraced its steps ahead of us.  I had hardly started out when Ben called out, “here’s a good spot!” As I turned towards Ben’s direction there came this crashing and the sound of something big coming towards me.  No sooner heard then there came a big bull moose, head up, charging right at me!  I turned in my tracks, practically leapt all the way across the creek and was on a dead run!  In a few feet I spotted a partially uprooted tree suspended by other trees, I ran straight up that leaning trunk, a squirrel could have done no better!  The moose passed by and under me, the others were all resting just off the trail and he just roared right by them and was gone.  I know that moose never gained an inch while I was running!  I think that he thought we were trying to chase him towards the fire and had had enough.

  We blazed some trees, I made an arrow with some sticks to show the way to Ben’s crossing and we headed out again.

  Around six p.m. we came to the large branch of the Raush that formed the fork where the fire was located. For the last couple of hours, the smell of smoke had been getting stronger, as we stepped out onto the riverbank, there across the river and a ½ mile or more up the mountain was smoke and open flame.  After a few minutes of scouting around we found a tiny clearing and decided that would be our camp, at least temporarily.

   I took off my boots, changed my socks and asked who would go with me back down the trail to meet the others.  Ben said right away that he would, so I appointed Bob as a “Strawboss” and told him to get the camp set up.  Ben and I headed back down the trail.  We didn’t meet up with Slim’s bunch until about halfway between my moose creek and the last ford.

  They had had no trouble crossing; Slim had each person enter the river holding onto the tail of a horse and other than getting wet crossed without incident.  I took a good look at Scotty and to my surprise he looked better than he had all day.  He would occasionally have a little stumble, but it was different than before.  I noticed a short while later when we were having a break that Slim with his back to me was giving Scotty something that appeared to be in a bottle.  I didn’t interfere and I didn’t ask!

   It was almost dark when we spotted a campfire ahead of us and with groans of relief shed our packs, unloaded the horses (which Slim put into a rope corral he improvised), gave them a bucket of oats each.  The guys knocked back a couple bowls of Lipton’s Soup, a couple of cups of tea and to a man tumbled into the blankets that had been laid out for them.  My blankets were on the ground close to Slim’s tent and just as I was falling asleep I heard Slim say; “ No, that’s it Scotty, it got you here, the rest is only for emergencies.”  I think I fell asleep smiling!

                                                          To be continued