THE KATES HILL PRESS, DUDLEY,
ENGLAND
STORY OF THE WEEK, #2,
AUTHOR: MARTYN THOMAS
Firefighting In British Columbia
I spent the last shift up at
Kelowna in the Okanagan with our helicopter
fighting that huge forest fire
that took out part of the town. What an
awesome sight, particularly on
the Friday night when the fire took on a life
of its own, a very sobering
sight. I didn't fly on that night but
my
partner smoked his first
cigarette in 4 years when he got out of the
aircraft, the pilots weren't
their usual gobby selves either.
Apparently
watching peoples houses
literally exploding in 300-400 foot flames and not
being able to stop it, has that
effect. My most vivid memory was trying
to
stop a vineyard and beautiful
house from being destroyed, but every time we
flew away to the lake to suck
another load of water we would return a minute
later to find the flames
creeping further down the hill. We were
pulled off
that section to go elsewhere, I
guess the guys on the ground realised it was
beyond help. Our designated "sucking" area was
just offshore from a
stunning house in manicured grounds
with private jetties, however the
neighbours on both sides only
had chimneys to mark where their homes had
been.
The town itself displayed only
what I can describe as the "Blitz" spirit.
30,000 people were evacuated
from the path of the fire, one third of the
town's population. The organisation of the emergency services,
the town
council, the voluntary
organisations, the town businesses and the people
themselves were incredible. All the hotels opened their doors to the
families (and pets), the restaurants
fed them for free, supermarkets gave
food out, furniture warehouses
converted into accommodation and the
townsfolk threw open their
doors. Not one family was left on the
streets.
Fire fighters came from hundreds
of miles away using up their holidays.
In
spite of all their troubles and
not knowing whether they had a home to
return to, people would stop us
(and all the other fire fighting agencies)
to thank us, a very humbling
experience.
Martyn Thomas, Vancouver Island,
September 2003.