Original subtitles

[spotter] Fire Centre, X-ray Alpha India.

[Fire Centre] Okay, 730 Alpha, Fire Centre.

You can check the winds are picking up,

and I'm seeing increased fire activity.

Copy that.

[Dan] The fires that we're dealing with now

on the landscape

are so much more challenging

than anything I've experienced in the last 28 years.

2003 was one of the first seasons

where there was significant home losses in B.C.

Fire sizes that summer were abnormally large,

and we were, like, "Wow,

this is an unprecedented season."

[♪♪♪]

Then comes 2009,

significant large fires again.

2010, significant large fires.

2012, 2015,

2017, 2018,

when we thought,

"We're almost burning a million hectares.

Wow, like, where is this coming from?"

This past season, 2.8 million hectares.

The temperatures are getting hotter.

I feel like we're getting more lightning.

We're going through these periods of longer drought.

Climate change is real,

and we're experiencing it

in a very accelerated process.

The word "unprecedented" seems fitting right now,

but in five years,

will that still seem to be the case?

[♪♪♪]

[train horn blasting]

[train cars rattling]

[train horn blasting]

[Tiffany] So, this was our property.

Our house was this way,

and then we had a rental apartment

on this corner.

Somewhere around here was our--

our front walkway.

There was a dining room,

and our kitchen,

and stairs that went down to our living room.

I was standing just on our front steps

and past my car

was the grocery store,

and beyond there,

there was a huge tree engulfed in flames,

and it was all just billowing smoke,

and everything behind was on fire.

Yeah.

[news report] Breaking news tonight.

After setting a new record for hottest temperature

ever recorded in Canada,

a fire has engulfed the town of Lytton, B.C.

[Tiffany, on recording] We've gotta leave town.

The town is on fire.

-[car horn honking] -Go!

[news report] They had no warning.

Essentially, they smelled smoke,

-and within 15 minutes-- -Get! Go, go!

--the entire village was engulfed in flames.

[Tiffany, on recording] Let's make sure

Grandma's coming, okay?

[news report] We've been hearing from experts

what extreme fire danger there is right now in B.C.,

well, this is case in point,

-right here, in Lytton. -[Tiffany] Hurry up!

Hurry up!

[car horn honking]

[news reporter] An evacuation alert

went out this evening,

so one would hope everybody managed to get out safely,

but it is exceedingly difficult

to get more specific details than that at the moment.

[news report] Before this week,

the highest temperature ever recorded in Canada

was 45 degrees Celsius, set in 1937,

but Lytton has broken that record

for a third day in a row.

Sunday, the temperature reached 46.6.

Monday, it reached 47.9,

and today, it reached 49.6 degrees Celsius.

[woman sobbing]

Oh, my God!

[phone ringing]

Hello?

Okay.

We got a fire near Nelson?

[♪♪♪]

Hey, hon'? I've got a fire!

Okay...

just gotta call Callum.

-[line ringing] -Come on, Cal.

[♪♪♪]

Hey, Callum!

Yeah, we got a fire.

[starting motorcycle] Yeah, just outside of Nelson.

Okay, can you call the rest of the crew?

Okay, see you at base.

[♪♪♪]

[Chloe] Southeast Fire Centre,

this is Southeast 730 Alpha.

Southeast 730 Alpha. Copy that.

[Chloe] You can check

that we're headed to the lightning-strike fire

that was reported on the ridge above Nelson.

This is that I.P.R. from this morning,

and we're just gonna go take a look.

I'll set my next check-in in two hours.

Copy that.

[Chloe] Initial attack is a four-person crew

that heads out to smaller fires.

[helicopter whirring]

It's our job to get there as quick as we can

and try to suppress and contain the fire

before it grows into a bigger incident.

We're basically

the First Responders of wildfire.

One of my jobs is calling in the Initial Fire Report.

Basically, outlining what you're seeing on the ground

to Fire Centre,

and so, you're thinking, like,

what kind of air support is available?

Air tankers, retardants, skimmers,

more buckets.

It's all problem-solving.

[Chloe] As Initial Attack Crew Leader,

you're the incident commander for that fire.

You're planning ahead on how you want to action it.

You're assessing what resources you have

and what resources you need.

[Chloe] And you're also prioritizing

the safety of the crew,

and everyone else on the fire.

You're trusted with bucket crew for fire 502.

I took lots of photos for you guys.

Down here is the main area of concern.

It's probably about 200 metres from the ridge.

Zulu Hotel Zulu will be back on site

to support us with some buckets today.

Yeah.

[♪♪♪]

[Chloe] You have to develop

a really good sense of situational awareness.

The fire itself

is progressively creating dangers.

So if you're on a steep slope,

even managing helicopters is a big danger.

When you're assessing the fire,

you're thinking, "What dangers are out there?"

and then assessing, as the fire progresses,

"What will happen if the fire grows?"

[Tiffany] There was a train above town,

and its brakes just started screeching,

to the point where my son wouldn't hold my hand,

crossing the street.

He just wanted to cover his ears,

and, I said, "Well, that's weird.

What's it, like, coming to such a halt for?"

[brakes screeching]

We get in the house.

I go upstairs, use the washroom,

and I come down,

and I just kinda get this smell of campfire.

I open the front door,

and the building between us and the nearest house

was the grocery store,

and right on the other side, it was on fire.

Yup, that's right by my house.

And then I look over,

and all behind the buildings on Main Street,

right below that track

are just fully in flames...

Please don't come this way.

...and I'm just, like, "Okay..." [laughing nervously]

Told my son, "Grab your tablet."

We had some chickens,

and I just threw them in the air,

because I didn't want them to be trapped, and I didn't--

Couldn't take them in the car with three dogs.

The fire truck was coming down.

I don't know where it had been,

and it was just black.

I got in the car,

and I just turned onto Main Street,

and just started laying on the horn,

honking at everybody.

I got to about the gas station,

and the bridge into town,

the people who were blocking the bridge

were turning around,

because it was coming across the train bridge,

and the flames were licking the bridge.

Everything was black and on fire,

and I just, like, had a mental breakdown.

[N'kixw'stn] I was in the United States military,

and that helped me survive the fire.

I had just taken a shower,

and I was already in my pyjamas,

and this young man came barging in, and he goes...

he says, "You gotta get the hell outta here!"

He says, "The town's on fire!"

I says, "What do you mean?" and he says, "Look!"

And I looked out my picture window,

and the-- the smoke was going this way.

It wasn't just going this way.

It was going this way,

and I ran out, it just felt like I was running into fire,

'cause it was just hot.

My face started burning, my arms, my legs,

and I say-- I was just going, "Oh, my God!

God, do something, do something!"

And the guy opened my car door,

and he says, "Get in!"

And when I got in,

it was just, like, getting into an oven.

And I heard the car, uh,

behind my house, explode,

and I said, "Holy shit!"

And that's was--

I went into "Vietnam mode"--

self-preservation.

I made a U-ey,

and it was just, like, Vietnam.

Everything was red,

and the only thing I could see

was the red building structure,

and I was following the yellow line,

and I turned right too soon,

but I ran over the curb, and the grass, and everything,

but I was gunning it.

You know, the whole town was on fire.

You know, the reserve was on fire.

You know, people were running for their lives.

[truck horn honks]

[♪♪♪]

[Katelynn] We're just working from south to north,

spraying a 10-foot wet edge

with the Rattler Unit Crew here today.

We do lots of interface fires,

uh, especially the last couple years,

it's been more and more common.

It hits pretty close to home

because of the Lytton Rattlers,

we lost our home a couple years ago, in 2021,

so, it's, uh, very close to our hearts,

and very personal,

so, we, uh, try to give back as much as we can

to other, uh, communities, when we can.

Not a lot of crews can say

that their hometown burned down while they weren't there

because they were on a different fire,

helping another community out,

so... that adds another layer to it, as well, obviously.

[JT] Yeah, it was tough,

because we were actually on the fire up here in Lillooet,

when that Lytton fire first popped off.

We could hear it on the radio,

and it's, like... yeah, it was tough.

We got redirected from Lillooet back to Lytton,

and my first initial thoughts

were if my family got out or not?

I could care less about the homes,

and just trying to get into communication

with my folks and my brother,

and, uh, yeah,

a big bag of mixed-up emotions.

Once I found out they were all good,

then we were able to focus

on protecting the rest of the communities

that were still salvageable throughout that incident.

We come in here, basically,

you know, we have a job to do,

you know, and that's what we're here for.

Just to stay focused at the task at hand, you know,

and just deal with it,

'cause we've been in this situation before,

but it definitely becomes personal

when it's in our backyard,

anywhere, actually.

[Lorna] Initially,

I don't think you even, really thought of your losses.

You just thought, "Are people safe?"

And the ones I feel sorry for--

I mean, I'm not a spring chicken, either--

but the ones I feel sorry for were the kinda over-80s,

that were moved to Merritt, or Spences Bridge, or whatever,

into a motel room,

and they were living there for months.

[Tiffany] I will not live downtown ever again.

We're taking a buy-out with our insurance

to buy a house above town,

because I refuse.

I couldn't do that.

I wouldn't be able to sleep at night.

If that fire happened at night,

we'd probably all be dead.

[N'kixw'stn] Since the fire,

we've had lots and lots of deaths,

of heart attacks, and strokes,

and, you know,

I guess it's the after-effect of, you know, extreme stress.

A lot of residents have passed due to cancer.

My husband's Nanna included.

She-- Even right before she died,

she said, "You know, we can't pretend

like this didn't cause this."

[♪♪♪]

It is hard to know how to keep going,

but you just have to.

[♪♪♪]

We're the canary in the coal mine.

We had the heat, and the chaos,

but it's coming for everybody.

We weren't prepared,

and I don't believe that society is prepared

in the same kind of way,

and, so, we have to-- as a society--

work together to make changes now,

because, as we discovered,

if you are scrambling at the last minute,

you leave people behind.

Yeah, copy.

Uh, crew right now is just...

[Chloe] The heli's gone to pick up Tom and Tristan,

and after that, the pilot will go back

and bring us some gear.

If I'm coming to an emerging fire,

there's, like, a lot of different things

you're considering,

and thinking small picture,

and then big picture, too.

Like, what will happen if the fire grows?

And what resources you're going to need,

in what timeframe.

You're coming up with a game-plan.

[helicopter whirring]

[Chloe] You can check 730 crew complete on fire N72500,

and I'll set my next check-in in two hours.

[Fire Centre] Copy that.

[helicopter whirring]

[Daniel] So a net's gonna come down,

we're gonna load up this gear.

We've kinda weighed it

to make sure that it's appropriate

for the capacity of the helicopter.

We use this on remote IA fires,

where there's not a road that's next to the target,

so we need to be slinging gear

from where we can stage vehicles and have gear,

up to the fire.

[helicopter whirring]

[Chloe] One of the biggest things that you're looking for

when you're assessing the fire,

is where is the closest water source?

If you can find endless water

in a creek that's a kilometre away,

and you know that once you establish that hose-lay,

that you're just gonna have full pressure the whole time,

then it's worth putting in that infrastructure.

[helicopter whirring]

Obviously, the most challenging

is when there's no water available,

and one of the most obvious ways

is to get a bladder,

and you request a helicopter to bucket into it.

We got our bladder set up here,

and, uh, we got this medium helicopter, here,

that's gonna be runnin' runs from the lake,

filling it up over there,

and then dump it into this bladder here,

and then, basically, just--

we use these in scenarios

where there's no, like, bomber water source.

[chuckling] ...but

that's also the most expensive way to get water.

[Callum] Here he comes to bring us some water.

[♪♪♪]

[Chloe] This fire's on the top of a ridge.

and there's no other water around,

so although it's expensive,

it's the only thing that we have right now.

[♪♪♪]

Approximately three hectares in size.

The crew is currently working on establishing a bladder-site

and pushing hose.

There's numerous spots outside the main body,

up to 400 metres away,

uh, Burning Rank, one.

Pockets Rank, two.

[Fire Centre] Uh, do you have any requests,

other than, obviously, more aviation support?

[Chloe] Yeah, I think we could use some more crew

on the ground here.

I'd like to get another four-pack in.

[Fire Centre] Okay, that's good info.

[♪♪♪]

Ah, just making sure everything's tight.

Before a guy gets...

on with his day.

[Ray] These machines are kind of like

the staple of our wildfire business

here in Canada.

It's used for quick, initial attack.

Basically, fire suppression.

Move up to nine passengers at a time.

Bucket on a fire,

or fill up a bladder quickly and efficiently.

-All clear, Johnny? -Clear.

[♪♪♪]

[starting engine]

[Ray] The weight of the load that you're swinging around,

you just get used to that feeling,

and knowing where the load is,

and 150-foot line,

to 100-foot line, to 120-foot line.

Once you get used to a certain length,

you can really dial it in pretty slick,

especially when you're filling up a bladder,

you're onto a fire.

Sometimes, what people see on the ground

is not necessarily what's happening

200 feet above where the relay tank is.

You've got three different winds happening,

and you're trying to bring the load down to the bladder

and, uh...

it's the machine shuddering,

and you're just kinda waiting for it

to kind of fall through itself,

and then, you know, you're grabbing the power

to be-- making sure that, you know,

nothing dangerous is gonna happen, but it's...

It's definitely tricky.

It's hot, it's high,

and it's...

yeah, it's dangerous.

[♪♪♪]

The intensity seems to be a little higher every year.

A buddy of mine calls it

"the fire wind that comes out of the south,"

and, you know, it's challenging,

but I want to be around for that sort of stuff.

Oh, I love this machine!

I love just flying the--

I love just flying the line.

[fire hissing and crackling]

[Chloe] We've been hiking to the fire,

and as we get closer,

we're seeing more spot-fires that have spread

from the original lightning strike.

I've asked Callum to get a bladder set up

on the ridge I saw,

while we get closer to the fire.

[♪♪♪]

[Chloe] Awesome.

That's great to hear.

[Mitch McCallum] Yeah, 710's coming out

to help Chloe on 2500.

Three hectares is a bit much for one crew.

[Callum] It takes a bit of time to get some hose laid out

and get people on the ground,

but once we start getting that cold stuff

on the hot stuff, uh,

it goes pretty quick, you know?

It's just kinda where the cliff area is,

so what I'm thinking is three-way here,

and then punch in the middle of these.

That's the main body of the fire,

and then it's spotted, like,

400 metres down slope.

[helicopter whirring]

Also just on your radar,

I think we'll probably need some food

if we're gonna be camping out another night.

Yeah, it really wants to go.

[helicopter whirring]

-Nice! -Yean, that's good.

[Callum] Nice job.

Yeah, direct it on that.

Nice workin' at the end of the day.

[Chloe] Yeah, it was a successful day.

We got a lot of water on it.

Definitely took it down a notch,

but I think we gotta call it a day.

It's getting dark.

We don't want anyone getting hurt.

Let's, um, pack 'er in.

Come and set up camp.

Setting up people's tents.

Yeah, kinda saves them one thing to do.

Foxtrot 56523...

But, yeah, we've been doing lots of camping this year, um...

which is really nice.

It's nice to wake up, uh,

just right on the fire, and...

usually some pretty beautiful spots, too.

Holy, shit, look at this.

It's set up?

Living the dream up here.

Yeah, that's great.

We got the fuckin' crème de la crème here.

This thing's sick.

A little slope, but, you know,

it's gonna work.

[Chloe] Dinnertime.

It's a good day.

Pretty tired.

[sniffling]

[♪♪♪]

[Chloe] All right, where am I going here?

[♪♪♪]

Oh, yeah.

Right here!

[crew member] Chloe, do you need any help?

[Chloe] No, I'm good.

Just, uh, gettin' cozy here.

Chateau.

[crew member] That's gonna be a beauty.

Nice and soft.

[Chloe] Yeah.

[distant thunder rolling]

[fire crackling]

[♪♪♪]

[automated voice] Attitude mode.

[Chloe] Confirm all unnecessary hardware is off and everything?

Waitin' on satellites.

[automated voice] ...all points updated.

Check map to confirm.

Okay, now we're good.

Taking off.

[drone rotors buzzing]

[Cole] They use us at night,

so we can identify hot spots,

and hot spots jumping perimeters,

so we'll fly over and scan that whole fire,

put 'em on a map,

and then we'll send it to PWCC.

They can use it

in their morning briefing at 6:00 a.m.,

and they can go, "Here's our priority.

Here's our hot spots,"

and they know exactly where to go,

and there's no wasted manpower.

Red spots here are gonna be your hotspots.

Um, everything else is kind of colder,

so this is just gonna read

what the hottest thing in the image is,

so right here,

you're seeing this is 34 degrees Celsius.

[Cole] Pre-drones,

they used to get in a helicopter at night

and have a guy out there with a little IR camera,

and he'll just stick his camera out the window,

and either take pictures, or just fly around.

It's an unsafe and inefficient way to do it, as well.

You don't have an exact point of where the hotspot is...

[camera clicking]

...and these guys are just guessing,

flying around at night.

Okay, there's gonna be one here.

It's not gonna show up.

It's underneath that tree right there...

[Cole] We don't have anyone in our drone,

so we can fly from the ground,

do all our scanning,

and if there's an accident,

there's no one involved.

There's no death or safety risk there.

[drone rotors buzzing]

[engine shutting off]

[airplane engines powering up]

[line ringing]

[automated voice] Welcome to the audio conferencing centre.

Please enter a--

[beeping, keying in digits]

[automated voice] You are now joining the meeting.

Good morning, everyone.

Welcome to the Southeast Fire Centre weather call

for August 15th.

We'll start off with a roll call.

Cranbrook, you on?

[Cranbrook station] Good morning.

[Fire Centre] Good morning. Invermere?

[Invermere station] Good morning.

[Fire Centre] Morning. Columbia?

[Columbia station] Columbia's here.

[Fire Centre] Good morning. Arrow?

[Arrow station] Morning, Grace.

[Grace, Fire Centre] Morning, Jed. Boundary?

[Boundary station] Yeah, good morning.

[Grace] Good morning, James.

Kootenay Lake?

[Kootenay Lake station] Morning.

[Grace] Good morning.

Okay, so we'll turn over to Jesse Ellis for the weather.

Okay, great, thanks, Grace.

The infrared satellite picture

shows us in a hot, westerly flow.

We've got a frontal system up here across the north,

that's brushing mainly north of our region,

but we're gonna bring some cloud into the north half,

or third of our region,

by the end of the day today,

providing some moderation to our temperatures and RHs,

but for the most part,

think about just one more very hot,

and very dry day.

We broke the all-time daily record

in Castlegar yesterday here,

and so we're probably gonna break some more daily records

again today.

[Chloe] I woke up at 12:30,

when it started really goin,' the wind.

Felt like you were gonna get pushed off the cliff.

Yeah.

Lots of lightning around, too, and...

I'm assuming more starts,

after last night, for sure.

I think Mitch is gonna get up in the heli today

and take a look around.

Because we definitely have two over there,

one here...

potentially one down there...

...and that big one, too.

How was the night?

It was all right.

A bit of wind picked up.

The fly on my tent, like, popped off, um,

from the wind,

and, uh, I was pretty worried the whole time it was gonna go,

so I got out buck naked,

and wrangled the fly back onto the tent.

Yeah.

Luckily nobody saw nothin'.

[Callum] In a wildfire environment,

you get put through

these incredibly stressful situations,

but at the same time, you build these bonds

to these people that you work with.

Everybody has a role to play,

and we all wear a lot of different hats,

but it really works well when we're all together.

Objective for today is to leave it--

to have it UC by end of day.

That's given if we have, um, medium all day.

Like, there's a good potential

that we could get pulled away to other targets, so...

[Callum] Every time I think about not coming back,

I think about my friends,

and I think it's a pretty tight-knit family even,

and, honestly, like,

I can't imagine not working in that environment.

[♪♪♪]

[starting motor]

[♪♪♪]

[Chloe] Hey, Andy.

[Andy] Hey, Chloe.

[Chloe] I'm in position for the bucketing.

I'll guide you in.

Okay, go for it.

[Chloe] Making quick decisions

is something that you develop over time.

If I'm coming to an emerging fire,

there's, like, a lot of different things

you're considering.

It comes down to seconds

when you have to make that decision.

[radio] Downhill of steep, recently burned ground.

Prior to concerned landing,

ask an appropriate facility upon encountering severe winds.

Strong, gusty winds could result

in a steady increase in fire behaviour

and a changing direction of fire spread.

[Chloe] You're faced with challenges every day.

You have the situational awareness,

and you see something happen,

a tree comes down around you,

and you're, like, "Okay, this is real."

Oh, no!

The pressure of the camera got to me.

I know.

[Chloe] We're actually making really good progress

with the hosing,

just picking away at the little spots down below.

The crew is workin' uphill towards the main body,

which is right here,

and yeah, that's kinda where the most of the heat is,

is just down below in the middle section,

and then, um, there's a bit more to the west,

but we'll just keep punching line that way,

and keep hitting the spots.

[hose spraying]

[♪♪♪]

Hi, I'm Terry.

I'm the, uh, pilot today for fire patrol,

and this is Allison, the fire spotter.

[Allison] We're going looking for the tiny little fires

that are invisible to the average eye.

This is our little Cessna, Yankee, Charlie, Lima.

Usually in areas

where there's not a lot of human traffic,

and try and get crews out to put them out

before they turn into something big.

[Terry] All right, Nelson,

thanks for joining me on the ramp,

we're taxiing for run-up.

[Allison] Yesterday,

we found a fire near Meadow Creek,

near an active logging block.

Called an IA crew to come in,

and put it out quickly,

and they did.

[Terry] We go where the lightning strikes happen...

Yankee, Charlie, Lima, Fire Centre.

[Terry] ...and that's where, usually, we find fires.

[Allison] Chasing lightning.

[♪♪♪]

Fire Centre, Yankee, Charlie, Lima.

Yankee, Charlie, Lima, Fire Centre, go ahead.

I have that IFR ready for you

if you're ready to copy?

Copy that, go ahead.

Alpha, One. Bravo, One...

[line ringing]

Hi, Cedar.

It's Toni from Southeast Fire Centre.

You ready for some information?

Okay, Rank two,

so it's an open flame.

It's in heavy timber.

Uh, no water on site.

Suspected cause is lightning.

Let us know if it crosses the border.

[laughing]

Okay, thank you.

Okay, bye.

[♪♪♪]

You need to let Delta, Charlie, Mike know, um,

the IFR's been passed onto the Americans.

They do not need our assistance at this time.

[♪♪♪]

[Tiffany] We lost our hospital,

our ambulance station,

RCMP,

two churches.

We lost the bank,

two or three restaurants.

My mother-in-law had a store,

the grocery store,

the Legion,

the library,

the village office,

the pool,

the museum...

[♪♪♪]

And then whole family groups' homes.

So, my husband, alone, in the Haugen family,

I think five households lost,

um...

yeah... everything.

[♪♪♪]

[Lorna] There's about 2,500 people

within five kilometres of town,

but in the media,

they just kept coming up, "There's 250 people.

Why don't they just move somewhere else?"

but they didn't understand

that, um, that the community was bigger

than the 250 people

that pay taxes in the town, you know?

It was much greater,

and that's what made our community.

[♪♪♪]

[Tiffany] Nobody was allowed in the village for months,

because everything was considered too toxic.

The debris, the dirt...

everything.

We weren't allowed on our grass.

We weren't allowed on the sidewalk.

We had to sit in full Tyvek suits,

masks, respirators, everything--

on the street.

As time went on,

and you start remembering things you lost,

and realizing, "Oh, you know, when my dad died,

I got everything that he was left from my grandpa,

including his war medals,"

and I'm thinking, "Oh, now, you know,

none of my cousins ever get to see that."

I went there 13 times,

and I crawled across all the rubble

in a Tyvek suit,

either in the snow, or the rain, or the sun,

sweating or freezing.

We never found them.

[♪♪♪]

[N'kixw'stn] Two months later,

they found my cat under my basement,

behind plyboards.

She made it.

She's with me now.

She was burned in her face

and her little arms, and her legs,

and her belly.

Uh, SPCA kept her for two months,

helping her recover,

and, uh, so now we're like this.

She brought a chipmunk for my breakfast this morning.

Rattler One...

[voice indistinct over radio]

Div Alpha, go ahead.

Hey, uh...

[James] Lytton, itself,

is a First Nations dominant population.

It's a small community,

so a lot of folks know me

as, you know, a firefighter with the Rattlers,

and, hopefully, I do somewhat of an inspiration

for the younger guys.

[JT] They started, uh, the Lytton Rattlers in 2007.

We were trying to come up with a name and a logo

for our unit crew.

We got, uh,

one of the pictographs from the Stein Valley.

It's an owl,

and it's got a sheep and a deer there.

[James] It's a spotted owl,

and it protects everything

within the Stein Valley Heritage Park.

We've got the approval from the Elders from Lytton

to utilize the symbol,

and carrying the symbol around

is they're protecting us while we're out on the fires,

and we wear the symbol

to protect our hometown and Mother Earth itself.

[♪♪♪]

[JT] Every year

I take the crew back to where the pictograph is.

It's really neat for them

because they see what it means, and what it is,

and we bring Elders in,

and they talk about it as well,

so it's good exposure for them

just to know the background of the unit crew.

There's two different styles of the owl.

One's a protector, and one is a hunter,

so we're kind of both, you know?

We're a hunter of the beast,

the fire,

and also we're protectors.

[♪♪♪]

[voice crackling over radio]

[Chloe] We're headed back to check on Fire 2500.

We're gonna make sure it's out,

and then if it is, we'll de-mob' the gear.

I've never seen a fire so spotty

-with, like-- - [radio] Copy that.

...you know, it was like three hectares,

but it felt like 35,

just with, like, how much edge you actually had to hit,

but honestly, like,

the views today will be incredible.

Yeah, I'm actually pretty fired up to be back.

[♪♪♪]

[Chloe] Right now, we're setting up

for a patrol of the fire.

The goal is to make sure there's no more heat,

no smoke,

and then we can call it out if nothing's found.

Making sure we're not missing anything.

We finished our final patrol,

and Green patrol is no smoke or heat found.

and I'm gonna update the status to "out".

[helicopter whirring]

[♪♪♪]

Okay... [camera clicking]

...onto the next.

[♪♪♪]

Next time on Wildfire...

There was a lightning strike just north of Nelson.

It's highly visible to the entire community.

This fire started late in the day yesterday.

I think this fire is well beyond initial attack.

It looks like we're going to need

multiple rounds of air tankers.

That looks workable, and I would actually suggest

we put a line of retardant through there.

I think we'll need a unit crew in here as well.

I asked the medium bucket support

to come up and start bucketing.

Here he comes!

-For such a little fire... -Yeah.

...it has a lot of challenges.

We've got to get it in here!

What a mess.