Fire Fire Everywhere

Fire has a tendency to leave a vivid mark on your memory, I still have visions of the field behind my folks house blazing out of control after the owner, as farmers do burned off the grass. The first five years living in the Coast Mountains forest fires were something you only really heard of through the news or saw the scarred remains on road trips through the province. I can’t recall even seeing a far off plume of smoke. In the late spring of ’07 or ’08 a group of us were pedalling back to our buddy’s place for lunch after a morning of riding the trails in Pemberton. Passing a field we noticed flames, clearly the farmer was burning it off and wasn’t there.

An hour later, after some burgers and a beer someone looked out the kitchen window and noticed smoke rolling up the mountain. The mountain we had just been riding, the mountain with a burning field at its base, the mountain our buddy’s truck was still sitting up on. Scooting over in another truck, the fire department directed us away. If memory serves me right, it wasn’t until the next day when we found out Sean’s truck hadn’t been burnt. Luckily they were able to contain the fire quickly, mostly in part to the fact that the live timber and greenery were able to resist the burn.

Fighting fires in Pemberton, BC during the summer of 2026.

Sitting in a boat fishing for bull trout gave us a bird’s eye view of the mountainside slowly going up in flames. Not only was it torching the trees, it was taking out power lines. Every half hour or so we would be treated to an explosive display of power that while sad and devastating was also awe inspiring. Without structures to burn or lives to lose we could only guess that the fire wasn’t a priority, taking several hours for the helicopters and planes to arrive. A few years later I found myself slowly walking through the same burn, marvelling at the array of life that had sprung forth and looking for a buck that had been leaving sign there. Just this past spring I spent two days on the binoculars scanning the black trees, their tops now broken from the wind searching for black bears in scrub and alders that have grown to be eight to ten feet tall.

Fire is a rebirth for nature, a reset, a clean slate. Releasing nutrients in the soil, as long as it doesn’t burn too deep and hot, will bring forth a riot of plant life. Large trees with thick bark, like a mature fir can withstand this and the forest comes out stronger in the end. Not to mention the critters that live there with the new found growth of food. Recently a fire started far too close for comfort in Pemberton. With luck the winds mostly held, blowing the fire away from town. Following days of heat, a simple switch of wind, heavy gusts could have changed the story greatly, for the worst.

Out doing some summer deer scouting, I popped up to check out what was happening. For two hours I slowly moved around snapping photos. Taking in the flames, the smoke, the people and most of all the helicopter crews slinging endless buckets of water. The power of fire is incredible, it can do good and devastate, sometimes at the same time.

See you on the water or the mountain.

- Matthew Mallory