December 30

5 C and sunny
I'm a bit late this morning as I had to get the next few paragraphs ready for copying to here. I'll try and get ahead today, however the story is almost near completion.
It's windy out side today, but that should help dry things up. Yesterday when I walked up town I saw where winter pansies from last year were in full bloom. The buds on some of the yard plants are quite advanced as well.

 we reduced the crew to two men and left them there for another week to patrol and grub out any hot spots.

The most memorable fire that summer was up the Tuchodi River. The Tuchodi is very remote and the mouth of the valley where it empties into the Muskwa River is quite narrow and enclosed by steep hills that rapidly turn into mountains. It is like a natural barrier.

Up stream a mile or so the valley widens, in the distant past it probably supported timbered areas similar to the upper Muskwa. But some time ago (years before my arrival) a base camp for a guide and outfitter had been established. It had been the practice of outfitters to periodically burn off any significant vegetation. Because of the remoteness and lack of access the fires had never received any attention and had in fact often been reported as lightning strikes in inaccessible areas.

The pattern however was the fires were started in the early spring as soon as the snow was gone which usually was before any electrical storms arrived. The purpose of burning off the larger trees, particularly the conifers, was to create pasture for the game that inhabited the area. Elk were the prime recipients of this process.

We started our routine air patrols anywhere between the middle of April and early June, the timing was tied to how early the snow receded. It is a natural phenomenon in all parts of British Columbia that are exposed to extremely cold winters and fast snow melt to have a spring fire hazard. Fires at that early time are extremely fast moving especially when driven by winds that also are prone to occur.

I believe it was around the first week of June, we had called for a patrol and I decided to go along for the ride. Even after a year I still wasn’t satisfied with my knowledge of the whole district.

We started the patrol by swinging out over the area to the north east past Clarke Lake we were out about seventy miles or so when John called from the office base radio saying that an aircraft had just reported a heavy volume of smoke coming out of the Tuchodi.