What It's Like to Fight a Wildfire

My world comes fading in upon hearing footsteps crunching through the gravel outside my bedroom window, which are undoubtedly headed to the kitchen for breakfast. I open my eyes but quickly squint when the bright, low-angled sun reflects off the white panelled walls in my room. I’m sweating. I unzip my sleeping bag and expose my body to the already warm air, and throw a leg and arm off one side of my mattress. My roommate is still sound asleep on the adjacent bunk. It has been a mild and windy night, with little temperature recovery and no dew on the ground. It is a sort of foreshadowing of the day’s events ahead.

I quietly pull on a shirt and shorts, and leave the room, closing the door quietly behind me. The hallway smells of rubber and tiger balm. I walk with socks and flip flops across the same gravel as the last guy and enter the kitchen. On the way, I notice that the orange windsock on the airstrip is already indicating a 15 knot southerly.

A traffic report of a distant city on the TV is making up the background noise in the kitchen. I swirl a square of pancake around my plate to sop up the sticky syrup. I’ll have to floss between two of my molars after breakfast because there’s bacon stuck in there. I was looking forward to grapes in the fruit salad this morning, but juice and a few chunks of honeydew were all that was left.

It’s 15 minutes before our stand-to time, so it is time to don my two piece uniform, which smells like laundry detergent and earthy soil. I struggle to pull my orange rubber boots on, as the liner is still somewhat damp from yesterday. The crew heads out onto the sunny helipad to load the machine with all of our gear. It takes us just short of 8 minutes this morning. None of us are surprised to hear the rippin’ indices on the day’s safety briefing, as it has been smoking hot for days, with no rain. There have been no triggers for ignition though, with no lightning or large groups of campers in the area recently. But today, a passing cold front should give us the instability needed for sparking clouds.

A 20 minute flight deposits us in our day base location, closer to the area of probable ignition. The pilot lofts a tennis ball attached to a length of webbing over the main rotor blade to tie it down. At 11AM the temperature is already pushing 26 degrees, but our 5 minute getaway time precludes us from hanging out down by the river. We seek respite from the sun in a dark, dusty old outbuilding with some 80’s furniture, including some orange shag-seated chairs and a grey sectional couch with purple flowers. The coffee table has sticky coffee cup rings on it and could use a good wipe down. But who is going to do that?

We open our cooler and pull out our bagged lunches, which include a sandwich, juice box, apple, and a treat. I take comfort in the thought of my mom sending me to school with my own brown paper bagged lunch every day when I was a kid. I trade my rice krispies square for a twin pack of cookies with my buddy. Our conversation is lighthearted, but inwardly we are like coiled springs. We take wagers on when the first dispatch call will come. Out the window we look to the northwest, where towers of cumulus clouds are rocketing ever higher above the haze. Time for a game of bocce out in the grass perhaps? Halfway through my turn, we hear the voice. It is high-pitched and sounds like a pretty girl on the other end of the radio. It has a Pavlovian effect on us – now we just needed a pole to slide down. The rookie was almost dead on, with the dispatch coming a mere 6 minutes after he guessed, at 1336.

We frantically organize ourselves and copy down the coordinates for the reported smoke, which has been spotted by White Mountain Tower. I get the elevator feeling in my head and stomach as the helicopter lifts out of the helipad. As we ascend to our flight level, it becomes clear that the smoke must be from a dry lightning strike following a large CB that is rapidly moving off to the northeast, which isn’t showing a very organized precipitation core yet. Distance 16 miles at a magnetic bearing of 338 degrees. ETE 9 minutes. Today is an automatic double dispatch day, so we are on the lookout for other aircraft in the area. The radio waves are very busy with air traffic and fire crews, as new smokes are being reported every few minutes with this line of thunderstorms.

“…Altimeter two niner eight zero…helicopter charlie foxtrot hotel is off Greenfield base…XMA seven five this is birddog one zero seven on channel two four five…traffic in the area of White Mountain tower, bell helicopter kilo whisky mike is showing seven miles back…be advised that visibility is less than one mile…fire number bravo whisky fox zero eight seven…”

We can now see the multiple starts, but we continue headed to the smoke we’ve been assigned to investigate. The crew leader communicates with the radio room from the front seat: “You can check we have the reported smoke in sight. It’s a small light grey column at this time, bending over to the east. Are any other resources currently inbound to this smoke as well?” We lower our flight level to have a closer look, and I begin to get butterflies in my stomach. We all have our notepads out, pens poised to copy down any pertinent info. I look out the window and see the shadow of our medium helicopter running along over the continuous lodgepole pine forests, and immediately think of the Vietnam War, hearing CCR playing in the background. I feel cool for a second.

Now we are on top of the smoke. It is a confirmed wildfire, and it suddenly becomes real when the smell of wildfire smoke fills the cabin. Light turbulence bounces us around while we orbit overhead, looking for water sources, escape routes, and safety zones. When the helicopter banks more steeply, you can hear and feel the “thwop thwop” of the main rotor in your chest. This fire is rapidly picking up in intensity, with whole trees candling. There is a sizeable lake on the north side, but if the wind shifts slightly southeast, the fire could enter miles of continuous fuel. You can check this fire is Oscar Charlie. Keep the tankers coming! There are roads and a nearby lease site which can be used for staging. Aerial and ground access is possible, which allows for more flexibility in our S&T plans. We’re itching to get down there. Let’s go!

As we near the ground, I watch as the cushion of ground effect propagates outward beneath us like a slow moving shockwave. The landing site is softer than it looks from above, so the pilot has to hold power in order to keep the machine from sinking into the skeg. As I go to unload the tail boom compartment, I am hit by the deafening scream of the engine and blasted by the scorching exhaust. Cold swamp water pours over the top of my rubber boots and fills them a third of the way full. We huddle together holding down our gear as a crew, and watch as one of our members hooks up the bucket. As the machine lifts out of the hole, we shield our faces from the downwash that hits us with spray and tiny stinging shrapnel that goes down our shirts and causes our clothing to flap like flags in a stiff gale.

We grab a couple of hand tools and the chainsaw kit, and sling on heavy boxes of hose and the pump. We make our way towards the water source, which is about 300 metres away. The backlit smoke billows above an aspen stand in the foreground, with occasional plumes of black heaving skyward. A bright orange glow is visible below the canopy. The sunlight is filtered into an eerie red on the local landscape. Our helicopter is bucketing near the head of the fire, but is having little success with the intensifying fire behaviour. Another crew is circuiting above, and we hear over the radio that a tanker group is 15 minutes back. We struggle with our heavy payload through soupy bogs and thick brush, our shirts sticking to our chests from profuse sweating. A spruce branch slaps me in the face for walking too closely behind a crew mate. That was refreshing! The bugs have found us too, as we’re swatting at hungry mosquitoes chewing on the back of our necks and frenzied horseflies circling around us.

The rookie and the second year work to set up the pump, priming the fuel line and the suction hose with furious vigour. A senior member who is a chainsaw samurai is gearing up to cut trail into the fire’s perimeter, so the hose laying can follow with greater ease. He has the saw laid on its side, draining sigs of mixed gas and oil into the tanks. The reddish clear oil slightly oozes over when he screws the cap back on. Then we get word on the radio that the air show is imminent, so we must hold back until they are done. This part is always so sweet. A few moments later, the small white Turbo Commander makes a low pass over the forest with the yelp siren engaged. Unfortunately we aren’t in the best viewing position with all of the tall trees around, but we will see some of the action. He passes again before peeling acrobatically off to the right, with the gun show hot on his heels. The tanker flies almost directly overhead before dumping red mud all over the forest, of which we see only the first little bit. Man, his landing gear was almost tickling the tree tops – those guys must be having so much fun! They go on to successfully tie it in on one side to the lake, but success on the other side is still uncertain.


When given clearance back into the zone, we make our way towards the rear flanks of the fire. The smell of combusted mixed gas and freshly cut wood is ripe in the air, with bright white cut off stems and sawdust standing out in the otherwise green understory, as the sawyer has gone ahead of us. My good buddy and I lay out 300 feet of hose to reach the perimeter, before veering off to the left with a final length. Arriving near the rear of the fire, we spot the obvious lightning tree just into the black, which is a tall poplar revealing a bark free spiral from top to bottom. I throw a nozzle onto the end of the hose and call the guys at the pump to let them know we’re ready for water, and they already have it on low idle. The hose lay behind begins jerking left and right, crackling and hissing with a mixture of air and water coming up the line. Suddenly it becomes fully charged with water, which is almost overwhelming at first, pushing me backwards. “How’s the pressure?” one of them yells over the radio, their voice almost being drowned out by the hum of the pump.

We quickly advance along the perimeter, only knocking down the flames during this initial pass, leaving smoke and steam in our wake. We ignore the larger flaming stumps well within the burn, even though they’re tempting to hit. My buddy links hose couplings to a tree and walks precisely 13 paces forwards, as the center folded hose unspools out of the box, ending exactly where needed. I’m getting close to the end of the hose, so he runs back with the strangler to choke off the water supply, enabling me to recouple a new length of hose, and reattach my nozzle to the new length. “Strangle!” I yell, and he clamps down on the charged hose. When I disconnect the nozzle, water squirts up and splashes me in the face. I laugh to myself and yell “water!” back when ready.

I continue along the fire’s edge, sometimes stumbling over sticks which crack underfoot as I drag along the heavy hose. Strong radiant heat from intensely burning jackpots of tree trunks cause me to retreat a little, with the blue smoke burning the eyes. I pull my red bandana up and over my nose and mouth. We begin to enter a swath of fire retardant, which has painted the forest red with a peppery scented, slippery, tomato soup-like substance, which unfailingly collects on the Labrador Tea. Things are getting a little hotter here, so we decide to call in a couple of bucket drops. As the machine approaches over the tree tops, we stand back a ways, as the trees sway back and forth violently, some of which are clearly of lesser stability after having their roots burned out. The full orange bucket looms overhead, still dripping from having recently been dipped, until we call, “3, 2, 1, drop drop drop!” and 280 gallons of water are released onto the hottest spots. The now empty, shriveled bucket trails along behind the helicopter as it goes to refill.

As the day wears on and fire behaviour begins to subside, we begin to see containment as more of a reality in the near future. With luck, by sunset we can update the status of this fire to bravo hotel (being held). I take a short break from nozzling and pull the twin pack of cookies out of my chest pocket, which are now partially crunched up. The chewy red fruit center of the cookie is delectable. I also pull a dirty, lukewarm bottle of water out of my pocket and down the whole thing, save for the last little bit to pour over my head. I crumple it up and shove it into a cargo pocket on my trousers. When I resume nozzling, I lapse into a more relaxed and introspective state, with the cool water dripping out of the coupling feeling good through my hand and down my neck. I dig up the burning ground with circular motions, and love the sound of the water vaporizing on contact with isolated patches of white hot dirt, which make a loud, hollow whooshing sound.

But now, with legal down approaching, we are called off the fire for the night. One crew will remain overnight along with a dozer group, who will assist in gaining serious ground on containing this wildfire, which is currently at just under 6 hectares in size. My crew packs up any gear not assigned to the fire, and carries it, as filthy as ourselves, back to the helispot. We are tired, but happy for our successes on the once raging wildfire. We load the machine, apologizing to the pilot for the mess we have made, who jokingly insists we apologize to the mechanic instead, who will have to clean up after us.

The low angled sunlight in an orange evening sky across the lime green forest canopy is a pleasant sight as we fly home at the end of the day. The sun sets as we approach our base, which at first appears as a tiny cluster of white and green tin buildings down in the valley. We’ve got to unload the machine as quickly as possible since the only thing on our minds now is food, then a shower, then bed, in that order. What is for dinner? We all forward our educated guesses based on past experience, but no one is right this time. Our late plates are sitting in a grey hot box, which are still quite warm when we get to them. The plastic wrap has condensation above the green beans and is stuck to the mashed potatoes and gravy. I’ll have to get some barbeque sauce to liven up the pork chops. It’s now dark outside the windows, especially under the fluorescent lights in the hot kitchen. Covered with soot that we have also unthinkingly rubbed all over our faces, with dirt under our finger nails and our pants still damp from skeg water, we pull up chairs to the table and eat together. 

What It's Like to Climb a Frozen Waterfall

I awake an annoying 17 minutes before my alarm goes off, which is already early enough, especially after a short night’s sleep. Yet the excitement for the day’s mission ahead rouses me to an acute state of consciousness. As I pull on my stretchy climbing clothes, a slight pang of anticipation stings my veins. My pack is already sitting by the door like an obedient pup. I quietly shoulder it, and sneak out into the night.

The streets are void of life at this hour, so I effortlessly glide through the city beneath the alternating illumination of amber light and darkness, inbound to my partner’s place on the mountain-ward side of town. The atmospheric yet heavy music I am playing is one with my mood, and I want it loud, as I am inspired by the thought of what it will be like to climb the day’s route.

We exchange tired smiles as he tosses his gear into the back, and then we head down the street to Tim’s for a quick, high calorie breakfast to go. My appetite hasn’t yet awoken, so I am slightly offended by the taste of the processed cheese and tangy orange juice in the predawn hours, but I know that that buttery cinnamon raisin bagel is going to be marvelous soon enough.

Turning down the music, we enthusiastically swap stories of the season’s achievements to date. My partner leafs through the pages of the guidebook and we dream of our like-minded plans to climb our most wanted lines. The chatter is vigorous, and the air is electrified by a blend of excitement and anticipation of what lies ahead as we pull up to the trailhead. We lace up our boots in the car, knowing that it will be the last time we feel warmth until we return.

The echo of the trunk slamming shut across the wilds and the sudden envelopment of darkness marks the transition to adventure. We allow the moment to sink in as our eyes adjust to the night sky. I recall my youthful understanding of what I saw, which was that the sun was still up above us in the sky, but it was behind a black sheet with little pinpricks in it that God had pulled over the world so that it was easier for us to sleep. I can hear nothing but mild ringing in my ears. We extend our telescopic ski poles, and plunge them into the snow. It’s time to go!

Everything about this day will be a very sensory experience. I become keenly aware of the sound my boots make as they penetrate the snow; at times crunchy, at times squeaky, and at times silent as they encounter deep sugary tufts. Sometimes I hear my partner’s breathing over my own as we ascend steeper slopes, as well as sudden high pitched cracks of small branches giving way as we brush past them in the understory of the forest. The vapour cloud caused by my exhalation is illuminated by my head torch in front of my face, and it obscures the view sometimes, also making the cold air feel colder on my cheeks. The fresh, cleansing alpine smell enters my nostrils.

Day begins to break, and as we ascend to higher heights, the vastness of the land comes into full view. I can feel a sense of focus creeping into my mind even before we arrive at our objective. I begin to think more tactically, remembering our discussion of how we planned to climb it. I consider the pitches I would lead, the time each pitch should take, where the rappels are, what the condition of the ice might be, and so on, as well as fight to suppress any unreasonable doubts which might cross my mind.

At last we round the final corner, and we cast our eyes on a line of ice so beautiful that even non-ice climbers would gasp at the sight of it. A smear here, a column there – the stark contrast of brilliant blue and white spilling down cliffs of black rock stirs up countless feelings from deep within. It is a flow of the simple, life-giving element of water, existing in a different state and seemingly frozen in time. It is simultaneously beautiful and terrifying. Yet it is indifferent to our plight. It seeks neither to be admired nor climbed. Some days it seems to assist us in scaling its icy appendages, and other days it seems to be conspiring to end our lives. But neither of these are the actual case. It is simply there.

To an onlooker, the life cycle of water ice may seem to creep by slower than a snail’s pace, but in the grand scheme of things, it is one of the most rapidly changing mediums in nature, to an extent that it almost seems organic. Its fleeting life is seasonal and ever-changing, determined by a plethora of environmental factors which provide infinite combinations of ways of sculpting and shaping it into a unique piece of natural art, season to season. Some lines form fairly predictably every year, and some years they don’t form at all. The ice takes on a different character not only yearly, but also daily.

This is one of the things that makes water ice climbing so interesting. The plastic, “one-stick wonder” ice your buddy was raving about yesterday could be a diabolical mass of brittle ice after a single cold night,  for which every stick is a laborious, time consuming task. And while the technical system utilized in all forms of climbing across the board is fairly standard, ice climbing is unique in a way that is almost philosophical. In contrast to rock climbing, the ice that you are climbing in the winter season is not there in the height of summer. So at that exact place in space, you are climbing in mid-air at a different time.

Now we arrive at the base of the route. There are chunks of ice lying about and a few foot prints circling around in the snow revealing that other members of our strange tribe have been here too. I remove an ice tool from my pack and give the ice a couple of good whacks to see how it feels today. As we don our helmets and step into our harnesses, we notice that the towering snowy peaks across the valley are awash in the red of the alpenglow that is characteristic of a mountain sunrise. I stack our two colourful lifelines neatly in two piles off to the side of the first pillar of ice. I love the smell of these ropes and how they feel sliding through my gloved hands. I bend figure eight knots into them and thread them through my harness. It will be my partner’s lead first, so I snuggle up in my big, poofy down jacket.

I watch as my partner silently but confidently snaps carabiners and ice screws onto his harness. The screws are hollow tubes like wind chimes and they make similarly beautiful music to my ears as they clink together. Ahh yes, I know the feeling. I have been there too. Concentrated, calculated, and psyching myself for the first lead of the day. Like a child on the eve of Christmas, the imminent engagement with this flawless medium gives me butterflies.

I often think of the absurdity of what it is that we do and how we must look to everyone else. It must look like we are about to enter some grisly, medieval gladiator battle amongst a pride of angry lions. I mean, we are wielding not one, but two hammers with sharp, serrated knives attached to them, and we have twelve razor sharp points affixed to the soles of each of our boots. I suppose we are going into a battle of sorts, if one could call it that, but it is of mind, body, and soul.

He begins to move his way up the pillar. What a spectacle. Almost any picture taken in this environment seems to belong in a National Geographic magazine. The sound the pick makes as it hits the ice echoes off the walls of the surrounding amphitheatre adds to the feeling of seriousness. The ice looks challenging this morning, as he is taking many swings and knocking down a lot of ice. How fun! How often do you get to take a hammer and smash things to smithereens, especially when it sounds like fine china? As he gets higher, the ice he knocks down falls at a greater velocity, and you can hear some of them whistling by before they crater into the snow. I cower at the thought of standing over there. It gets quieter and quieter as he climbs higher, and I pay out rope by feel. A small amount of spindrift cascades down the rock above, and some of it goes down my neck. I shiver and pull my hood over, tuck my chin under my collar, and blow warm, moist air over my cheeks. It’s getting cold. Isn’t he done climbing the pitch yet?

Finally it’s my turn, and I shove my jacket into my pack and change my gloves. I climb the second pitch fast, but my hands are cold. I have to stop a couple of times to shake them out. When I arrive at the belay station, I receive the full effect of the dreaded “screaming barfies” – a malady which occurs when blood arrives back in the hands after having been absent for some time, causing momentarily searing pain that incurs a desire to either scream or barf. I high-five him for his solid lead and gear up to lead my pitch. I look it over for a couple of moments, and feel a nervous excitement, as this pitch will surely push me. This is the pitch where everyone gets the sickest shots of their buddies climbing through a notch in the rock at the top of a steep pillar of ice. My buddy slaps me on the back in encouragement, and away I go.

I swing at the smooth surface of the ice. My tools are sticking well for the first few moves. This ice is a dream! It almost looks edible, like peppermint candy. I guess I lucked out on this pitch - it definitely isn’t as bad as I thought. Kick, kick, stand up, swing! Hang straight-armed like a monkey, move the feet up, kick, kick, swing! This is such a physical game. Hips out, hips in, lean back. The movement is almost robotic, as in an ideal world, the same sequence would repeat itself for the duration of the climb. It feels so good to execute such smooth movements.

Athletic though it may be, you would be hard-pressed to consider ice climbing a sport. It is an artistic form of expression that can be technical and graceful, that can be considered both hard-hitting and delicate, and seems to be more like a synergy of martial arts and dancing than anything else. It is a most cold and steep dance. It requires both physical and mental stamina, since ice is a cold, hard medium which often behaves unpredictably, and is quite unforgiving of a fall. When in the middle of a hard lead hundreds of metres off the deck, the sudden realization that you are attached to a vertical sheet of ice by merely four to six sharp metal spikes of your own placement, each planted little more than an inch at best, can be an exhilarating if not unnerving place to be.

Okay, it’s becoming more challenging, because every time I swing, I’m breaking off a two inch thick dinner plate of ice. And now it’s getting steeper, and this section feels longer than it looked down there. Good old foreshortening, always playing tricks on us. Yeah, now it’s grade five for sure. I actually have to shake out my hands after every upward movement, and now my calves are beginning to heat up. Maybe it’s time for another screw. I begin drilling it into the ice, but I have to remove it, as the meager core reveals that this screw wouldn’t hold much. I try again about a foot up, but still, nothing great. I look down between my legs and I am discouraged to see my last screw a fair ways down. I shake out my hands and encourage myself. I move up, swing, swing, bounce, swing, glance, swing, stick. Shake out. Man, my calves are burning! My tool recoils under the explosion of dislodging a large chunk, and I yell “ice!” to my partner below. Don’t swing at convexities; they explode! I continue moving up through a section of pretty bad ice until, thunk! The characteristic buzz and vibration of a solid stick radiating through my hand restores my confidence. I greatly reduce the grip on my tool and relax. I place a screw, and this time I drill it home, with a lovely white core coming out of it. That feels good. As I move up through the crux notch, I suddenly become aware of my surroundings. This is the moment I have been waiting for all season. I let out a holler which echoes off the walls, and my partner responds with his own. This is the life! How many people on earth are seeing this right now?

The attainment of a calm headspace through deliberate movements up, over, and around curtains, pillars, glass-like chandeliers, mushrooms, daggers, and petals of ice offers an unmatched form of meditation for the mind. There is nothing quite like a concentrated execution of movements of the body through the nervous system as dictated by the mind in such an environment. Here, we feel truly aware. We feel truly alive. This is what keeps us coming back. And as long as we keep this focus, knowing when to back down or to climb on, we can hope that we will continue to have the privilege to safely be a part of this rewarding form of artistic expression.

I pull up to the top, anchor myself to the rock, and let out a sigh of relief and satisfaction. I begin belaying my partner up, though I can’t see him past the bulge. All I can see is the valley below, and the massive peaks on the other side, now brilliantly white in the sun, with a deep blue sky overhead. I am thankful for everything great in this time. I reflect deeply on life in these few moments alone, before my partner arrives, and we go on to climb the remaining pitches to the top as a team, like a well-oiled machine.

When we arrive at the car, we remember how the objective was hard won. Both of us pushed ourselves, and were lucky to climb a classic route on a perfect day in the mountains. Sure, we shivered a little, felt the burn in our forearms and calves, rapped our knuckles on the ice, and felt slight doubt at times. And yes, our boots and gloves are wet, we are hungry, we have windburn, and I have a small cut on my nose from getting hit by a rogue chunk of ice. But being in the mountains, sharing a rope with a comrade, entering into a state of supreme focus, getting the heart rate up, and feeling a tangible sense of accomplishment made it all so worth it. In fact, we even relish in the suffering, as it builds character, counting it as one of the positives of the day.

The drive home is different from the drive out. As it gets dark, we mellow out, feeling fully sapped of energy but entirely satisfied. We have semi-smiles plastered on our faces and the odd time we recount the day’s highlights. The music fades back in, and we enter into a more introspective state. The thought of the meal we will eat tonight, and of how a starlit hot tub will feel afterwards keeps us awake as we drive home.