21C Sun.
MacLwean Trophy in pm, the into Victoria for firstwo games of the Dogwood tournament. Lost 1st one, won the second.
We should have had both games but let our opponent catch up and pass us late in the game.

Together we decided that I would leave the closest road which ran all the way to the Stuart River until last. It was reasonably well traveled and if a fire was along it, there would be a good chance someone would report it. I would start with the one we called the Blue Mountain Road which ended at an old sawmill setting about fifteen miles in.

  I did a quick check on my fire season gear that I kept in the truck, added two more back pack pumps to the two I usually carried and filled them with water. I was on my way twenty minutes after my arrival.

  Immediately north of town it was all farming area and the main road followed along section lines, right angle corners every mile for the first five miles then onto the gravel road that led northerly to Fort St. James. When on my way I disregarded speed limit signs and fifteen minutes after leaving I turned off the main road onto the Blue Mountain Road.

My speed was now reduced to a maximum of thirty miles per hour which was okay as I also had to keep watch for any ground level smoke as well as keep sniffing for the smell of fresh smoke.  The first five or six miles was all through a mature pine stand then about a mile of immature pine, I crossed a small creek and I remember thinking ‘I sure hope it isn’t in the next few miles.’ This thought was because I was now entering an area where a twister (tornado had touched down about five years before and had left a swath of broken twisted and uprooted trees covering an area of about twelve square miles. The area ran on an angle from the west and crossed the road about another six miles further on. During those dry times it posed an extremely difficult situation in the event of a fire.

As I drove along I started catching glimpses of the ‘blowdown’ area through the trees on my right, then just before I got to where it would cross the road I caught a whiff of fresh smoke! ‘Oh crap!’ I thought, ‘It’s going to be right in it.’

  I kept going, driving slower, I still didn’t know which side of the road it would be on and I knew it would be difficult to spot unless it was really active. Finally just before where the storm had crossed the road there was an old skid road leading off to my left and on a hunch I stopped and got out of the truck. The smoke was definitely stronger, there was no wind so no clue as to direction, following my hunch I started picking my way up the skid road, as I proceeded the smoke got stronger and I realized that the smoke layer above was acting as a cover and holding the smoke down, within a thousand feet of leaving my truck I spotted open flames.

  I walked up to within a few feet of the fire’s edge, it was burning quietly somewhat inhibited by the remnants of the old road. Under most situations I would have carried out a reconnaissance around the fire’s perimeter, but with the large amount of windthrow it would have been quite onerous as well as hazardous. I climbed up on top of an upturned root and decided that the fire was burning in a circular pattern and was probably only five or six hundred feet across. A few yards from my vantage point was a spot where the fire had appeared to have been burning vigorously. ‘Between a half and an acre I thought but if a wind ever picks up ---!’ I clambered down and hurried back to the truck. I turned on my a.m. two way radio and called Vanderhoof, no reply, I moved the truck a few feet and called again, still no reply. With those types of radios dead spots were very normal. I knew that about another two miles down the road near the end there was a tie cutter with a small D2 cat, I had just inspected his fire tools a couple weeks earlier, the question was would he be there today. I gunned the truck down the road and in a few minutes pulled into where his ties were stacked. The cat was there and somebody’s butt end was facing me from the motor! After all these years I don’t remember his name so I’ll call him Jules