Short Story Library

[PERSONAL HISTORY]
More than three decades ago Mike Shusterman was a student working as a forest fire fighter in Northwestern Ontario. The story he tells is an insight into the dangerous and frightening work of fire fighters in the Ontario forests as they try to save people, lumber, towns and property. The fire fighting system he describes has been developed and improved over the years.

Back in 1916, the Matheson fire near Cochrane destroyed several towns and killed more than 200 people. Because of Ontario’s forest fire management, we haven’t had a fire like it for many decades. Forest Fires are a natural part of the boreal forest landscape. But they have also posed a threat to people, property and industry since early settlers came to Ontario.

Fires are part of the heritage of Ontario forests. Mike Shusterman takes us with him as he and his team tries to hold the line against the flames.

Dryden Fire # 26
By Mike Shusterman, Thunder Bay

The fires that raged out of control in Australia in February reminded me of two days I will never forget-two days where almost everything imaginable about fighting a forest fire occurred. I was working on a Forest Fire Crew in Manitouwadge, Ontario to help pay for school in the Forestry program at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay back in the 70s. We were four crew members and a Crew Boss, Bert. Fighting fires for the summer was a student’s dream come true, especially for one enrolled in a forestry program. The pay was great as in a normal fire season you could expect to stash away enough money for the entire school year and it was exciting.

We started work right after the school year at the end of April. The snow had disappeared; however, there was still ice on some lakes. The geese were returning and spring was in the air. It was finally warming up and becoming true forest fire season.

We immediately got down to training, training and more training. Little did I know how much this training would be called upon in the upcoming weeks? So we trained and trained some more, with much time spent working the portable water pumps and working with the fire hose that had a mind of its own once it was charged with water. Carrying heavy hose packs over and over again made me appreciate the good life at school.

The time moved slowly and we had the itch to see some real action. We did get to experience a grass fire on the edge of town. A raging grass fire can get very hot, with all the dry dead grass left over from the fall. This grass fire was nothing close to what we were soon to discover.

We had trained to the point that we knew what we were doing. As part of our many duties we had cleaned up and repaired everything that could be cleaned up and repaired at a Fire Base. We had packed and unpacked boxes of cleaned and inspected fire hose. Then one day a call came into our Fire Base that a large fire had started in the Lake District near Dryden. A number of homes and timber were in jeopardy. We were dispatched immediately.

We made it to Dryden in eight hours. When we arrived at 7 pm, the whole town was covered in a thick blanket of smoke and it was dark with an eerie quiet. You could see the setting sun through the smoke, making the sky a contrast of orange from the fire and black from the smoke. The whole town and surrounding area looked like it was on fire. I would experience the smell of that smoke every day for the next six weeks. It is a smell that seemed to have a taste as well. It made your eyes water too. That we were called upon to help this community extinguish this ever-growing monster made me feel proud and nervous at the same time.

We made our way to the busy Fire Base. It looked like a movie set from a war picture. Everyone was outfitted in fluorescent coveralls, running around moving equipment, dispatching vehicles loaded with fire suppression equipment, food, and camping gear and crews. Supervisors were barking orders, and you could sense the urgency in this organized chaos. I truly felt like I had joined the army and that our crew was soon to be at the enemy front line.

As we prepared to become part of this chaos, we suddenly wondered where these crews were going as night approached? Well, we were going out to the front line, now! All our training had been in daylight, but we were to start attacking our first real forest fire in complete darkness.

We arrived at the one of the fire’s many edges and met the Fire Boss, who had 2-way radio contact with all the fire crews, the Air Attack, the main Fire base, and Fire Central back in Thunder Bay, which assisted him with up to date weather forecasts and fire-spread details from the daily aerial surveillance.

We made it to the frontline, unloaded our equipment and then Bert started barking orders. We strung out our hose lines-continuous hose in 100 foot lengths connected to each other and to the portable fire pumps-and proceeded to establish a perimeter in the dark. Once we were next to the fire line, it was easier to see due to the glow of the surrounding fire. We were encircled by the noise from distant crews, pumps groaning away, the sound of shovels digging next to the slowly moving fire line and that smoke.

We established a fire line around the section the Fire Boss wanted under control by morning so that we could move further along the fire’s edge next morning. Then we worked our way back along our fire line to camp, where the mess boss had already supervised the setup of our tents and supper, our first food since leaving Home Base.

We were starved and the food was fantastic. We were both tired and excited. That night we met a helicopter pilot who had served in the Vietnam War. I could have listened to his stories all night long. This fire business was simple compared to what he had been through. He could put you down exactly where you needed to land. I guess when there are people shooting at you, you get very good in a hurry.

When you think of a fuel source in a forest fire you automatically think of trees standing in a forest and the associated woody debris lying on the forest floor. But the area where we had to run new hose line was through a huge blow-down area of aspen, poplar and jack pine trees caused by a wind storm during the past winter. This added to the fire’s fuel and also made it difficult climb over and through the mess.

With 85-pound hose packs strapped to our backs, we would walk along the fire’s edge and string out hose so it could be connected together as our line and crew advanced. As the nozzle person moved along the perimeter, he would hose down the soil, making a fire break. Progress was slow through the blow-down areas. We kept advancing, trying to reach the next fire crew in order to surround the fire completely. It seemed like there was no end to the number of boxes of hose being carried to the front.

By now the fire had grown to approximately 25,000 acres in two days. Due to the fast advance of this fire, the Fire Boss declared it a “project fire”, which meant that everything was to be at his disposal to combat this fire and protect the adjacent assets of houses, cottages, and Crown timber.

We worked hard that day, and even though it was very hot and tinder-dry with a strong wind, we made steady progress. We impressed the Fire Boss, and within a few days he moved us closer to the leading edge of the fire, right at the centre of the action. We felt pretty good about our efforts. The next day started for us like any other day on the line, as we broke camp and got to work adding more hose lengths to our line.

We could feel the heat of the sun and the warmth of the fire through our coveralls, that weren’t so new looking any longer with the soot of fires worked into the fabric. The smell of smoke was not even noticeable to us any longer, just part of the scenery.

That day, I noticed that Bert was nowhere to be found and so I followed the line back towards the pump set-up. No Bert, so I walked back to camp. I heard a moan and there was Bert inside his tent, which was just roasting by now, and he was just dripping. He came out and could barely walk. He talked but didn’t make any sense and could barely stand-up. By this time my crew mate, Marcel, came back to see what was going on. We took Bert and placed him in a shaded area under some spruce trees and got him some water. Bert had sun stroke.

Suddenly, from the distance we heard the chugging motor of a helicopter. We could distinctly hear this new noise, over the whining sound of our pumps. It was piloted by the Vietnam vet Bill. He landed in a clearing nearby and out jumped the Fire Boss.

The Fire Boss didn’t seem to care that we were without our leader; he was so focused on the growing fire. He told me to jump in the helicopter. Well I jumped in all-right, into this large helicopter, and went to close the door, but there was no door! So I strapped on my seatbelt as tight as I could and held-on.

We quickly climbed above the tree-tops. There was fire and burnt trees as far as the eye could see. I could see our line and pump set-up running off the small lake where our camp crew and Bert were located. We were at the base of a hill, and one of the growing flanks of the fire was coming in our direction.

The Fire Boss explained that we had to get prepared for a tough day. The fire was growing at an alarming rate due to a combination of the blow-down trees as a fuel source and the daily 1 pm surge when the winds would kick up and push the fire through the tinder dry jack pine tree crowns and jump all the fire lines. The standing jack pines would be lit up like torches, fanning the fire through them.

When we landed again, I jumped out and the Fire Boss followed me to a safe spot away from the rotating helicopter blades. He looked at Marcel and me, pointed to the hill next to our camp, and said, “Men you must take that hill, we’re counting on you”, and he left us, both in astonishment. Wow, again I thought I was in a war movie. The Fire Boss even had on a pair of aviation sun glasses. He seemed like General Patton! The helicopter disappeared and we were on our own again.

Marcel and I didn’t know whether to laugh or get scared. Meanwhile, Mark and Jim, our other two crew members joined us. Bert was still out of it and we were prepared to “take that hill”. It was 10:30 am, and getting warmer.

We had steady progress and quickly made our ascent up this hill. By this time it was about noon and even hotter. We took turns running back to camp for a bite to eat and to check in on Bert and the noise on the 2-way radio.

By early afternoon you could hear the pines rustling, starting to bend into the wind. You could also smell these pines as their resins were being forced out of their needles due to the heat. The smell of smoke intensified, and you could hear crews on the radio talking back and forth about their positions.

We overheard hurried conversations of the crew from White River, to the southwest of us who were about to lose their position and were planning an evacuation of their line. I thought, “This crew is evacuating their position and we are the next in-line, as the wind blew. Where did they evacuate to? What about us?”

A helicopter went whipping by carrying a large water bucket. We made contact with Bill our friendly pilot, as he was putting out some smudges that had jumped our line. Bill told me to keep a look out for sparks being whipped up by the wind that were crossing lines. I thanked him and he told us again to watch-out and disappeared to get another bucket of water.

By now the wind was getting even stronger and Bert thankfully started to recover.

It was getting scary. Crews all around us were losing their positions. Helicopters were buzzing nearby. It was windy, hot and smoky. A bird dog plane, led a big yellow and red CL 215 bomber airplane meant for dropping water or fire retardant. This big bomber flew by us at top speed, low over the top of the trees. Suddenly it climbed up and dropped red slimy, slippery fire retardant very near our hose line.

Then, the radio came alive with a message I couldn’t believe. The White River boys told us to get out of the way. I was stunned for a minute, and then I could hear another new noise far away. I thought it was the sound of thunder. Within seconds the jack pine behind us started to ignite and explode, not lit by fire but by wind and heat. By the time the Fire Boss called us on the radio to tell us to “get the hell out of there” we were already crammed into a small 14 foot aluminum fishing boat, escaping from the approaching cauldron of smoke and fire. It was 2 pm.

We paddled out to a small island almost in the middle of the lake. It became very dark and still except for the roar of the fire. Evacuations had never been discussed during our training. We all snuggled up on this rock, not really an island, with just enough room for the 5 of us. The smoke was so strong now we had to put wet blankets over our heads to breathe. We could hear our fire pumps and gas cans exploding on shore, sounding like a freight train going through. As we remained huddled together, we heard a quack and a small duck climbed onto the rock with us. The smoke was making it squint too.

Finally we thought the worst was over. We left our rock of salvation and paddled back to the shore. Bert felt better and got us re-organized. We made our way to our main hose line, and continued off in our original direction to the east.

We worked the line moving slowly, putting out hot spots. The smoke was still strong. The fire that raged through the hill was another finger of this huge fire that ran several miles and was stopped at a lake. Our mainline, was still intact.

We were beat by the end of the day. We were covered in soot, and could taste the smoke. The Fire Boss radioed in and thanked us for our efforts. The next morning we awoke to what appeared to be a peaceful sunny and warm day, although eerily similar to the day before.

We broke camp and headed out to control our frontline. We prepared ourselves for the mid-day heat and the expected fire storm. To help us deal with the situation, crews of Emergency Fire Fighters were flown in with additional supplies; to help us keep the pumps running, help with the spot fires and to assist our efforts to extend our reach along the fire edge.

Our friend Bill, flew over with his bucket in tow, and helped again with extinguishing some sparks that had crossed the line. We had control of the situation.

It was noon hour by now, and we took turns again getting a bite to eat. When it was my turn, I came back to camp to find Bert on the radio in contact with the Fire Base Air Attack people. Our pilot friend Bill had his bucket break away from the pinning under the belly of his helicopter while it was full of water, and the bucket had sunk under the waves. Air Attack was arranging for a diver to be flown in on a float plane to rescue the bucket.

We all had lunch and were back on the line bracing ourselves for another hot afternoon. We were making progress, controlling our line and then, like the day before, the wind started to kick up. We were all far from camp by now making our way across a peninsula, when it got dark again, from the smoke. Sparks were jumping our line so we were scrambling to keep position. We weren’t sure of our location, and suddenly our pumps stopped. We had no water. I made my way back towards the pump set-up, and to my horror realized that the fire had crossed our line. I took a run through the newly burnt forest and saw that the EFF’s had abandoned the pumps and were sitting at camp eating all the food.

I went back to warn the rest of the crew to come back with me, but after I had reached Mark, the approaching fire had cut us off from the line and the rest of the crew. No communication, no idea where we were.

Here we were standing in a burnt-over area surrounded by fire, trapped! When you are in trouble like we were, that you can start to hear things. Things you hope will help you out are not really there at all. We could hear helicopters that weren’t there. People talking who weren’t there. Mark and I tried to hide the panic that was settling in. We were both was scared and confused, and we had trouble breathing due to the combined anxiety and the smoke. This was not part of any training.

We did however notice a small creek that we thought we could follow and see if it led to the lake, and sure enough it did. I have never experienced such a feeling of relief.

We collected our thoughts and could make out the sound of somebody paddling through the dense smoke. It was Bert coming out of the fog. Were we glad to see him!

The float plane that flew in to retrieve the Bill’s bucket, crashed in the lake as the pilot couldn’t see with all the smoke. Bert had heard the pilot on the radio and paddled in the direction of the crash. He came across blood on the water. The pilot was badly hurt and the diver had a broken shoulder. Bert managed to help them to shore and Bill’s helicopter took them away once the smoke cleared.

We climbed in the boat with Bert and made it back to camp much to everyone’s relief. The EFF’s that had let us down mercifully were not around.

Just when we thought we had seen everything possible, a helicopter dropped out of the sky unannounced. Out jumped a blonde woman. We were totally exhausted, covered in black soot, and dirt, and had been fighting fire for weeks by now. She was dressed in white pants and a very open, thin shirt, carrying a TV camera and microphone. She was beautiful and clean!

She was from the Toronto Star and asked us what’s going on? She told us that the fire was causing smoke as far away as Toronto and wanted to know when we would put it out! We were all speechless.

Later we received a call on the radio from the Fire Boss who gave us a 3-day R&R break in Fort Frances and thanked us for our efforts. Eventually, the fire was put out by Mother Nature after she changed the weather to rain.

Mike Shusterman
Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada