Original subtitles

[♪♪♪]

[♪♪♪]

[Tom] In firefighting, there are no unimportant jobs.

Parachute packing takes that to the next level,

because the person really,

like rigging gear for rock climbing or anything,

people's lives depend on it.

There's artistry

in the intricacy of packing parachutes.

There is a system,

but you can get to the end of that system your own way,

and I think people do have little things

they do slightly differently,

but bottom line

is that every little step of that

has to be done... perfect.

I'll put it in nice so that it comes out nice.

[Tom] When you really rely on someone else,

it just makes it that much more of a bond.

The first time they pack a parachute

that can go on the shelf for someone else,

you often hear people nervous about it,

because they know now somebody they know,

a friend, a colleague,

is going to put that on their back

and jump out of the plane,

and that's quite a mind game for people.

[♪♪♪]

[♪♪♪]

[watch alarm beeping]

Uh, we are setting up the pump hose

for fitness this morning.

It's 5:20 in the morning,

and the students will be coming out at 6:00

to do some fitness before their classrooms.

Every year,

we have an influx of new people who come into Wildfire.

Part of their mandatory training is some bootcamps

where we give them their fundamental training

for the course of the season.

It is a week-long interview

to where you are gonna end up in B.C. Wildfire.

It's pretty intensive, and for some individuals,

I think it's quite a bit harder than they were expecting.

It's definitely not for everyone,

but that's the point.

Not everyone can be a wildland firefighter,

and this will show me who is built for it

and who isn't.

[clock alarm beeping]

You all ready?

Let's roll!

[♪♪♪]

Don't leave any regrets on my tarmac!

I don't want to see any regrets left out here

once we cool down and go home.

Yeah!

Whoa!

It hurts!

There's a flicker of doubt,

and we just fuckin' hammer through.

[laughing] Yeah! We're ready! Whoo!

[Kelly] That's Sam.

He's the head instructor here at bootcamp,

and he's a bit of a badass.

[Sam] Feel the burn while it's light!

Get it while it's light! Let's go!

Here we go!

[Kelly] All right, and... turn, turn.

Turn and burn, go hard while it's light.

Go hard while it's light.

Nice!

Drive! Drive!

Right here, right here, right here, right here!

And... turn, turn.

Good job! Good job.

[♪♪♪]

[blowing whistle]

[Kelly] We have four stations.

This is the one that's my personal favourite,

the pump hose,

which is kind of the historical fitness test

that we used to do.

It kind of feels like

you want to cough up blood the entire time.

Gives them a little bit of a history lesson

as they grind out in the morning here.

We can do this if we just hammer through.

Right here!

Drive! Drive! Drive!

[Kelly] It gets me fired up for the season

to just see these fresh faces come in...

Nice work! Nice work! Keep going.

...just really make them a part of my team.

Nice work!

Keep those legs movin'!

[Sam] Get there! Get there! Yes!

-Nice! Nice! Nice! -Good job! Good job!

Intention, integrity, and grit!

We're getting to the grit,

so we want to see everything you have

on this hillside!

Let's go!

[♪♪♪]

[shouting] Come on!

[Kelly] This is a training exercise

where they have to cut hand guard,

and it's pretty obvious

that many of them have never done this before,

but that doesn't really matter.

So what I look for

is more for the character of the individuals.

I can teach them to be good firefighters

once they get to my work unit...

but it's the intangibles of who they are as individuals

and how they integrate onto my team

that I'm really looking for.

Nice work.

So again, too, like,

you see how we're already kinda doin' this?

You want that nice straight line, okay?

We're aiming for that bit of road

that we can see right down there, okay?

If we don't have an effective guard,

it ain't worth jack shit.

This is kind of like a week-long interview,

so the people who really want it

will show it at bootcamp.

[♪♪♪]

[reporter] Canada's wildfire season

is now officially the worst ever recorded...

[reporter] ...was the most destructive wildfire season

in B.C.'s history...

[reporter] ...about 5,000 wildfire fighters

from around the world have joined...

[reporter] ...7.5 million hectares have burned...

[reporter] ...record-breaking destruction

and heartbreaking loss....

[reporter] ...an exhausting and difficult season

taking its toll on firefighters...

[♪♪♪]

[Kelly] Good morning, everybody, officially.

We're getting further into the season.

I know, historically, August 9th

is kind of when fire season is starting to really ramp up,

um, and we're already kind of on our fifth deployment

right now, okay?

So hopefully everybody had some good days off,

got some rest.

Hopefully you can kind of keep hitting the ground hard

like we have been all season, okay?

I supervise a 22-person crew.

We generally take the larger incidents

within Wildfire,

so what we know as project fires.

Oh, we got Dennis Rexin in here.

Hey.

Uh, for everybody, uh,

Dennis Rexin, if you haven't met him,

uh, Deputy Fire Centre Manager.

Any words for the crew?

I really want the crew to know

that, um, we're here to support you.

Uh, we are starting to see

a lot of impacts of the busy season on folks

in all areas,

both mentally and physically,

so with that,

we have had a few incidents,

a few concerns.

Um, fatigue is real.

It's not something that we just power through,

so please make sure that we're touching bases

with everyone on the crew.

Okay. Have a safe trip.

-Appreciate that. -Thanks, Dennis.

Invermere is where we're heading,

so N2-2243, the Horsethief fire,

and kind of replacing the Monashee Unit Crew

that had been doing some work on this fire

over the last couple weeks, okay?

Let's, uh, go load up.

Make sure you do your idiot checks

so that we don't forget anything,

and then we'll do a radio roll here

in a couple of minutes, okay?

Thanks, everybody.

[♪♪♪]

All right, let's start the, uh, radio roll here.

[Kelly] When I started this job,

I planned on Wildfire

to be maybe four years as I was going to school,

and then I would get onto

the kinda next chapter of my life.

The thing is

that once I actually got into Wildfire,

the relationships that I've built

is just what has kept me coming back year after year,

and I love it so much

that here I am with a four-year plan

15 years later.

[helicopter whirring]

This is a large fire, about 2,900 hectares.

It's been burning for a couple weeks now.

Some really good unit crews have been doing great work.

Unfortunately, they're timing out,

so we're brought in to relieve them

and then carry on

with the operations on this incident.

The plan is to create

what's called a fuel-free line.

This means removing anything that's in the fire's path

that it could potentially feed on,

the timber, undergrowth, roots,

anything that burns.

This creates what's called a control line,

and then when the weather conditions are right,

namely the wind is blowing away from the lines,

we'll do a controlled burn-off to widen that fuel-free.

That way, we get a nice clean line

where we've removed the fuel

that we can work off of.

That's always gonna be a more effective way

to fight fire.

So we'll go down

and just kind of make a line that makes sense.

To me, it doesn't look too crazy,

and it's, like, we just tie it into this...

this rock bluff here.

We should be pretty good.

Just make sure it's safe.

So this fire

has incredibly difficult terrain to work in.

[helicopter whirring]

We're in the Rocky Mountains,

so a lot of terrain inaccessible to ground personnel.

We're just gonna have to start

basically planning for Plan B.

It's really cool to work with my older brother, Connor.

He's really good at his job,

and he does make my life easy,

but I get to boss him around,

which is the best. [laughing]

Load up the trucks, we'll do a radio roll,

then we're gonna head back to main staging.

[Connor] I'm the second in command.

Kelly took my spot on the crew when I left for a few years,

and I came back,

and he was pretty much running the show,

which made the first year or two, uh... difficult.

I see we gotta...

We gotta get going.

Yeah.

[Kelly] The interpersonal stuff

every once in a while does get a little muddled

when he is also my big brother,

uh, however, we have a great working relationship,

and I'm absolutely stoked

that he's back with Wildfire.

Yeah, Rog, we are shut down,

and, uh, just walking downslope to get out of the way.

We get along most of the time.

Sometimes we butt heads a little bit,

but I think we've got a pretty good system going on,

and try to support each other

as best we can while doing this.

The two-brother dynamic is a lot of fun.

I think they both bring something different.

Let's get to the bottom of this.

[laughing]

[Noah] Connor brings that old-school Val mentality,

which is needed,

and I think Kelly is a nice balance to that.

He's very grounded.

You three are gonna burn.

[Noah] So he brings that cool, calm demeanour.

He's done it for over a decade,

and we kind of embody that as a crew.

[Cayenne] They are both pretty intense

when it needs to be,

but in the downtime that brothers can be brothers,

they definitely bring it out.

I have two older brothers,

so it's pretty nice to bring kind of almost a family feel

into the crew.

[Noah] They have the kind of jousting,

playful brother side

where they, you know,

get under each other's skin a little bit,

or give each other a hard time,

so that makes it a lot of fun to be around.

The next day or two...

Aah! [laughing]

[helicopter whirring]

[♪♪♪]

[Kelly] The forecast

is calling for some strong and erratic winds

heading our way this afternoon,

so we have to finish this control line

before the wind takes over.

There's risks.

There's properties and a ski resort nearby,

and they're all on evacuation alert,

so it definitely adds pressure to the work we're doing.

[Connor] Both of these spruce tied together,

no roots left.

We're doing our danger tree assessment,

which is very important for work safety...

We'll focus on this down,

so if you can get a good sweep down through here.

[Connor] ...and with this incident in particular,

not much holding up these trees.

If this is all good to go,

and people can be working up here,

that can be done a little bit slower.

There are a lot of hazards,

and we're finding

an exceptionally high amount of danger trees,

trees that have certain defects

or have been affected by fire,

and are gonna come down within our work areas.

[Kelly] My utmost priority

is always gonna be the safety of my people.

I do love the job itself.

It's extremely exciting.

It's rewarding work.

Our dad did it.

Our grandfather did it.

They were both air tanker pilots.

[Connor] So we kinda grew up around Wildfire,

and my dad had been a smoke jumper back in the '80s

up in Yukon.

[Kelly] Smoke jumpers are the folks

who parachute out of a perfectly good airplane

onto a fire. [chuckling]

[♪♪♪]

[Tom] Smoke jumping, or parattack,

is just a way of accessing forest fires by parachute,

rather than traditional methods of vehicle or helicopter.

It's not a natural thing

to exit an aircraft at 1,500 feet

into what is sometimes not the easiest terrain

with a wildfire burning.

That's a bit of an adrenaline event.

There'll be timber, there'll be hazards.

There might be a lake, or rocks, or the fire itself,

so there's always a nervousness.

You need to make sure you get where you need to be.

[Nigel] I've been here for three years now,

and I have a total of 40 jumps,

so I'm a rigger trainee.

Throughout the process,

you have to pack around 10 parachutes,

and you get tested by riggers who are more experienced,

who pull them apart.

Today we're doing some practice jumps.

Myself and a couple others

have packed what's called our "death chute,"

so that's the first time

we'll be jumping a parachute that we've packed.

It does sound kind of scary,

um, especially for us trainee riggers.

It's more of a black comedy type thing,

and it's a long running joke in the program,

and once you land safely

and your chute deploys properly and all that stuff,

you kind of demonstrated that you can pack parachutes.

There's a list that we write down

in case I were to, you know, plummet to my death.

They could take my truck, my house,

my mullet... [laughing]

All sorts of things that I own or are part of me.

I'm not a very good drawer,

but some people really go pretty crazy

with the skull and stuff they draw on it.

Here we go.

I constantly look at the parachute,

make sure nothing's wrong with it, you know?

It's pretty nerve-racking,

first time jumping one of mine.

The trust that is entailed in this job is quite large.

Everybody here is like family to me.

The stakes are pretty high for sure.

[♪♪♪]

There are definitely times

where you're jumping close to fires.

I have had times where I haven't been able to see anything

'cause I'm kind of in a cloud of smoke,

but it eventually clears out,

and you're able to land safely.

Pretty intense, for sure.

Nothing left to test now.

Just gotta jump the parachute.

I just gotta trust myself, you know?

I'm fairly sure that I didn't, uh, mess anything up.

[Nigel] I got the nerves,

you know, butterflies in my stomach,

but I'm excited to get out of the door

and see how it goes.

Whoo!

[laughing]

I'm alive, boys!

[laughing] I flew over you.

[laughing]

Whoo!

That was a good one.

I passed the test.

Here I am.

Safe on the ground and alive. [laughing]

I had heard stories as a kid from my dad

about how much fun he had doing, uh, smoke jumping,

and not even just the fires themselves,

just, like, the group of people that they worked with.

That was awesome.

We grew up moving from tanker base to tanker base.

It almost seemed like a little bit of destiny,

probably,

for me to get into it,

and, uh, I like to just keep that kind of tradition alive.

[helicopter whirring]

[voices crackling over radio]

[♪♪♪]

[Connor] I'm the head faller on the crew,

which means I usually go ahead of everyone else

to take out danger trees,

and just make the area

a little bit more safe for people to be working in.

[starting chainsaw]

It's pretty dangerous.

You gotta stay on your toes.

You gotta be quick, that's for sure.

[sawing]

[Kelly] Industry-wide,

it's always been

one of the more high-risk operations that we do.

[wood splintering]

A lot of the incidents we had in this previous season

were related to danger trees.

Lots of injuries.

[Connor] Our mom is fairly apprehensive

about what we do.

She knows better than anyone the dangers of the job.

[♪♪♪]

[news report] More than a thousand people

packed into the gym of Rossland's high school

to remember Ian Mackay.

It seems everyone in this small community

knew the 41-year-old,

who leaves behind a wife and four small children.

[Kelly] In 2003,

my dad crashed on a fire near Kimberly.

I was 13 years old, uh,

when my... when my dad passed away.

[news report] Mackay,

along with his copilot, Eric Ebert,

were killed when their plane crashed into a hillside

fighting a small forest fire near Cranbrook.

The plane exploded on impact,

no chance for either men onboard to survive.

Anyone who knew Ian would say

his greatest accomplishment is his family.

[Kelly] My life changed so much when that happened,

and would I have been on the same trajectory?

I don't know.

When I started firefighting,

it was probably not the easiest for my mom,

knowing that it is an inherently dangerous job.

I think over the course of my career,

she understands the levels that I take

to make sure that myself and my crew are safe.

She's come around to it.

[radio] Copy that.

[Kelly] My dad's plane

that he flew in on the day-to-day

is still in circulation,

and it seems to be a funny coincidence

that whenever I call in an air tanker,

I seem to get that plane kind of more often than not...

so when it shows up,

it always kinds of sends me back a little bit.

Um...

yeah.

[♪♪♪]

Here we go, first test.

Weighing in at maybe 230, 40 pounds.

Bit of a beast.

We have finished the first chunk of our fuel-free,

which means that, uh,

we're now going to allow

the rest of the crew to start working in this area

and finishing off the fuel-free.

[starting chainsaw]

[Cayenne] Being one of the youngest on the crew

has been a pretty funny experience.

It's kind of like you're the little sibling

to 18 other people.

It is definitely a male-dominated field,

and I hope that starts to even out,

but I think it definitely is beneficial

that I, like, grew up with two older brothers.

I'm used to being surrounded by males...

How's it goin'?

...and all the boys are very good to work with.

A bunch of buddies.

[chainsawing]

The past couple days have been good firefighting weather,

but the indices are drying out.

Fuels are becoming more receptive to fire.

There's a forecasted substantial wind event

that will be coming in.

It's gonna make it far more difficult

to contain this fire.

There is a risk that it will get out of control,

so our hand is being forced right now

with this wind coming in.

It's gonna be very challenging.

I think it's our best option

to go forward with this plan

to see if we can stop it here.

If we do nothing,

the fire is gonna continue to progress down the valley.

[Connor] Once we've carved out a control line,

we fortify it by cutting in a solid hand guard in the dirt,

which is essentially a small trench we dig

down to mineral soil,

making a complete break in the fuels

to prevent creeping ground fire,

and from start to finish,

that has to be rock solid.

Any little breaks in that,

and fire creeps across,

and we lose the whole thing.

We've always, uh, on Val, have taken a lot of pride in...

I don't want to say we're famous for our hand guard,

but we're maybe a little famous for our hand guard.

Whoo!

[all cheering]

You can cut as much as you want,

but at the end of the day,

it's the quality of a good hand guard

that will really show the effort you put out there.

Perfect.

Edges nice and clean,

even width all the way up.

This just makes it so much better.

[crew cheering] Whoo!

[Kelly] When you finish your chunk of hand guard,

we yell "Bumping!"

[calling] Bumping!

[crew shouting back] We got a bumper!

[crew cheering]

[Kelly] ...and you get to move to the front,

past everybody.

It's pretty fun to encourage everybody along the way.

[crew cheering] Whoo!

[Connor] Camaraderie amongst the crews

is a big thing.

It's really hard work,

so it helps to just have a lot of positivity.

[shouting] There we go!

[crew calling] Bumping!

[shouting in reply] Bumping!

Whoo!

[singing] ♪ My mother told me ♪

♪ Someday I will buy ♪

♪ Galley with good oars ♪

♪ Sail to distant shores ♪

[Kelly] We form pretty close bonds,

and that makes me protective of my crew.

The biggest thing on my mind, always,

is keeping them safe,

but this is a dangerous job,

and despite all our efforts,

sometimes the worst can happen.

[news report] Tributes are pouring in for Devyn Gale,

pictured here on duty.

And if you look at all these words,

this is what they did today when we were grieving her.

[news report] The 19-year-old's death

has shaken the small community of Revelstoke,

where she grew up.

Friends at a local gymnastics studio

created a poster

to remember what they loved most about her.

Uh, this is a very, uh, very sad day for our province,

and for all British Columbians,

and I want to say thank you to her,

for her work,

for her sacrifice,

and to her family and friends.

[news report] Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

called her death heartbreaking

in a Tweet this morning.

[Nolan] For my sister Devyn and I,

fighting fires, it's a summer job

to pay for school.

She loved it.

She had a lot more experience than me.

She was only home every other night,

and then would be out the door early the next day.

This season, she was in a bit more of a mentor role,

uh, because we did have some more new recruits,

and she just knew her way around

and knew what she was doing,

so she was a bit of a hot commodity this summer.

Uh, people wanted her as their Bravo on their crews,

the number two after the Alpha,

who's the crew leader.

Nine. [laughing]

Eight.

Ten...

[Nolan] That day, to me, means a lot of pain.

I can still remember it quite clearly.

Devyn led a couple other crew members up

around lunchtime,

and she did a flawless call to Fire Centre

when they were on their way to the fire.

A little while after lunch,

we picked up our saws and got to work

cutting a trail down to the fire,

and in the middle of that was when the tree fell.

I just heard some yelling,

so I killed the saw, and...

and then check-ins on the radio,

people asking if everyone's okay.

Devyn wasn't answering...

so I ran down with my saw,

and I found her under the tree,

and the first thing I saw was her helmet,

and it was just kinda on the ground by the tree

and crumpled like a Coke can,

and I was kind of, like...

"Oh, shit."

[♪♪♪]

[air horns blasting]

We were able to just pull her out,

which... [clearing throat]

a tough pull, um...

I let out a good scream at that point.

I remember thinking, like,

"I'm not sure if she's gonna make it."

I had my supervisor radio the zone

to tell my parents.

She was breathing when we found her,

but her pupils were dilated,

and the doctor said dilated pupils

usually means that there's no brain activity anymore.

[♪♪♪]

The fire community really came together,

and so many people lining the streets.

Exchanged a lot of silent nods with people.

We were kind of blown away by it all,

how much people cared, I guess.

[♪♪♪]

It was really beautiful.

I hope I'm never part of one ever again,

but it was a sight to behold.

She wasn't just a firefighter.

Um, she was a lot more.

She did lots of, like, coaching,

um, for swimming

and gymnastics and volleyball,

would give up a lot of her free time to go do that,

would give up a lot of her free time

for her friends who needed help with anything.

It just wasn't in her to say no.

There's a reason

why the community was so hit by it,

because she did affect so many people here.

She was far-reaching, I guess.

[Nolan] I'm grateful to have spent one last day

firefighting with you.

I'm grateful to have been close to you

when the tree fell.

I'm grateful to have been one of the people

who pulled you out from under it,

because it meant I got a few extra minutes with you.

Wherever you are, Dev,

I hope you can feel the love.

I hope you can see all of the hearts you've touched.

To so many people,

myself included,

you're an inspiration and a hero.

Her name will be known,

will be spoken...

will be celebrated,

and will serve as a reminder to us all

the dangers inherent with the work that we do.

Thank you, entire family,

for loaning Devyn to us.

I'm sorry we can't repay the favour.

We are forever in your debt.

You just got kinder, and wiser,

and more nurturing.

There's no question of Devyn deserving more,

deserving better,

and maybe this is the call to action that we need

to finally ask ourselves

if we're fine with every summer

having record-breaking numbers of fires,

and record-breaking temps,

and record-breaking natural disasters.

Maybe this is what we needed,

because if there's anything I know,

it's that the world isn't playing fair.

Devyn's favourite tree was the Western red cedar,

and on that day, it was a cedar that took her life,

and these summers,

and their fires, and their temps won't stop

just because we lost a friend,

a colleague, or sister.

[♪♪♪]

It was incredibly difficult for me.

I remember taking the I.C. and myself,

and we went, and we just talked to the crew.

I was trying to kind of put on a brave face

for everybody there,

and then once we'd kind of said our piece,

I kinda separated myself

and I went to the Ops tent there, and...

[clearing throat]

Yeah, it was incredibly tough.

My heart just went out to Devyn's family,

knowing what that was like, um...

Yeah, I...

Yeah, it was incredibly...

It was a terrible day.

Thanks for being... adjustable, we'll say.

[Kelly] After Devyn's death,

I didn't have a question

that this is what I wanted to continue to do.

It just made me take a step back

and just really make sure

that I'm here to take care of my crew,

and the safety of my friends

is what I was gonna really ensure,

that moving forward,

that is never in question.

[♪♪♪]

[Connor] We've been seeing

kind of a gradual increase in fire behaviour

over the last couple days.

We're trying to establish lines

before this significant wind event comes in,

which means that we're looking at 60 to 80 kilometre winds

passing through here.

There's, again, a lot of coordination.

We're waiting for things like wind to be in our favour.

We don't want to light up

when the wind is blowing directly across our line.

[starting pump]

We'll usually try to do a bit of green guarding,

which is putting water

on the unburnt side of our fuel-free,

and just giving it a bit of a humidity bubble

so that if sparks and embers come across,

they're not gonna immediately ignite.

Now we're gonna start burning off of this avalanche slide path

that we have tied into.

The goal here is to create a buffer

before the wind event shows up,

We want to slow down the fire

as it gets to the fuel-free area.

We're burning where the fire is heading anyway.

If we can get there first,

there'll be nothing left for the fire to burn

when it arrives.

Giddy on up!

[laughing]

[Connor] Saddle up, partners!

You got another one, Connor?

Gather 'round.

[laughter]

[♪♪♪]

Okay, so, new map for, uh, for the burn here,

slightly more macro scale.

Lots of aviation.

We got lots of eyes in the sky, all right?

[♪♪♪]

[Dion] Helco Hotel, Kilo, Uniform

lifting payload for the fire.

[Kelly] We're relying heavily on the helicopters

to hold this fire in these areas

so that we can complete the other operations

where we can actually work.

The larger the helicopters get,

the more specialized they are

to just carry water.

In the reconnaissance of the fire,

one of the sets of data we get is where's the water?

Just picking up the first load.

ETA to drop, three minutes.

Often there's this long grind up the mountainside

to get the water to the fire,

so if you can find a small lake

at the same elevation as the fire,

then you don't have to be flying up a mountainside

for each and every bucket,

but sometimes that's all you got.

[Bill] The unique thing

about the S-64 Skycrane

is the ability to put different components on it,

and the one relating to today, obviously, is the fire tank.

We've got the snorkel,

so we find suitable water sources.

That can be anything from a river, a lake.

We only need about two feet of water

to be able to actually get water onboard the tank.

Ideally, this tank will fill

in about a minute to a minute and a half,

depending on how much we're putting in.

We would select higher coverage levels

in hot spots.

We'll release up to 20,000 pounds of water

in about three seconds.

[Connor] There's urgency to get as much done as we can,

and hopefully anchor it

before something undoes all our work.

[Kelly] We're gonna see, potentially,

that increase in fire behaviour.

We're already witnessing it.

Moving in a pretty good direction,

so there's favourable wind.

[Dion] It can be quite difficult flying sometimes.

[Bill] We're getting a lot of smoke.

Reduced visibilities,

a lot of mechanical turbulence.

The helco basically directs us into our water spots.

which flank we're gonna be working,

proper separation of the aircraft,

so radio communication is really paramount.

We're gonna have Connie run round torches.

[Connor] Sometimes it feels a little uncomfortable

how fast you have to walk with the torch.

Uh, if you're not comfortable with the slope,

let people know.

If you're ever wondering where someone is,

call for them.

[voices over radio]

[Cayenne] I'm pretty nervous for my first burn.

I'm the only one that has never done it,

so it's very intimidating,

and walking with fire in my hand kind of scares me.

It's super challenging.

You're navigating through brush

and steep ground

with a heavy fireball in your hand, essentially.

If you get too far ahead,

that can put someone in a very bad situation

and entrap them in fire.

[Connor] Burn operations are, I think,

you ask just about any firefighter,

they're probably the most fun part of our job,

and to a lot of people,

it probably seems very counter-intuitive,

that you would add more fire on the ground

to stop a fire,

but burning-off operations are very effective.

[Kelly] Okay, dragging that edge, nice.

Let's go again.

The pile that was lit up up there

is looking a little precarious,

so watch for rolling debris, okay?

Okay.

[Connor] The threat of losing a line

always weighs heavily on me.

I want to do the best that I can

to hold the fire in areas that I want.

I am worried that it can get out.

Helco, I believe he's lost sight.

You got, uh, Val 1 on the ground.

[Kelly] We're watching the wind super closely.

I'm a little nervous it may be taking a turn.

[birdsong]

[door opening]

[phone ringing]

Hello?

Yeah, we got a load on. We're ready to go.

We've got a full bus, two crews on,

uh, another crew's in town getting food,

but they should be back shortly,

and we got plenty of mains, so no issues there.

[wind-up siren wailing]

[Greg] All right...

[siren wailing down]

[Greg] We have a target.

You can go ahead and suit up.

[engine powering up]

[Naomi] Usually when the bell goes off,

your adrenaline spikes a little,

and then rush over to the suit-up rack.

[crew cheering] Whoo!

[Greg] Anderson, Young, Christiansen,

Fulthorpe, Loveless, you're jumping!

[Tom] We're sending six jumpers to this fire.

Uh, sounds like there is a road nearby,

but it'd probably be about six hours

for the closest crew to drive there,

whereas we should be a little under 40 minutes.

We'll want to be on this one quickly

while there's still a chance to hold it.

[♪♪♪]

[Naomi] So, this is my first year.

I'm a rookie smoke jumper.

It's definitely hard coming in as a rookie

in a crazy year.

Sometimes I'm chill.

Sometimes I've got a lot of adrenaline.

It really depends on the day.

It's definitely a very overwhelming experience,

I would say.

[♪♪♪]

[Tom] This is just a small fire

off the west, uh, shore of Williston Lake,

in some old logging.

We'll have to assess it once we get there,

but if the lake's close enough,

they'll probably pump their water from the lake

Once we have selected the spot,

then we go over,

we toss out wind drift indicators

over the spot...

which will drift back,

give us how many yards of drift,

and we'll select a spot upwind of that, equal distant.

[Naomi] Greg's the spotter,

so he's in charge of making sure we go out the door

at the right time to get into the spot,

and he's telling you where he's letting you out,

where you're supposed to land,

the wind, and any hazards.

[Naomi] The consequences

if you don't make it into the drop zone,

you maybe get hung up in a tree or something,

so you don't want to get injured on a fire jump.

That's no fun. You're in the middle of nowhere.

[Tom] When they hear the "get ready,"

that's when they tighten,

because they know the slap is coming,

and then the slap is the indicator to exit the plane.

[♪♪♪]

[Tom] It's a very focused time for people,

because if you make a mistake

and you can become twisted on exit,

that delays you in your ability

to steer towards the drop zone.

[Tom] When you're in the door

of an aircraft circling the fire,

there's no bills to pay, there's no future,

there's no things that happened in the past.

It's a natural, meditative, in the moment presence.

It's unbeatable.

[Naomi] Right before you jump,

that's like a moment of peace,

which is quite nice.

[Naomi] As you exit, you're in a tight cannonball.

Sometimes feels like you're in a bit of a washing machine.

It's kind of my favourite part,

and then it's really gentle when your canopy opens up.

It's also super cool.

You have, like, maybe a second to look around,

but I'm not usually enjoying the view.

I'm usually looking where my stick partner is,

and at the drop zone,

and trying to figure out how to get there safely,

and it happens really fast.

It's only, like, 60 seconds or something.

So now that the jumpers

have safely exited the aircraft and landed,

there's 1,300-ish pounds of cargo

to get out of the plane...

[Tom] ...as quickly as safely possible...

[Tom] ...while keeping your eyes off of the horizon

in an aircraft that's pulling Gs,

it's not an easy task to do,

and you often don't feel quite right

when you're doing it.

It's like a cross between fishing on a fishing vessel

and running an Indy 500.

[♪♪♪]

Once the jumpers land,

they're just like all the other wildland firefighters.

The job is to put the fire out.

I would calculate that this will take

about two days for them to put out,

so they'll be overnighting tonight, for sure,

and possibly one more night,

depending on how deep the fire has dug in.

They have a lot of work ahead of them.

[Kelly] Let's go again.

[Connor] We're going to do a Hail Mary burn up top,

get some of the fuel burnt off before the fire gets there,

and see if we can contain it up the hill.

So we'll see what happens with aerial here,

but, uh, once they give us the signal,

we'll start with a couple strips,

if it torques a little bit, I'm fine with that,

just to get it pushing that way.

Yeah, you got us, just down the drainage there, eh?

I got ya there.

[Dion] Once there's crews on the fire,

you've got to be very accurate,

and you've also gotta be able to drop the water in such a way

that you don't fan the fire

with the downwash of the rotor blades,

so there's a bit of an art to that,

getting the bucket over,

but not loitering for too long

to let your downwash affect the fire.

When you've got a lot of fuel onboard,

you've gotta vary the amount of water slightly,

and then as you burn off fuel,

you can increase the amount of water,

so we're always trying to fly maximum amount of payload.

Go for ground.

That's not very good.

Yeah, I could probably take a torch or two up

and at least armour this side in the avi path a bit,

if that works?

[Kelly] So, the wind is an incredible factor

when it comes to fire behaviour.

It pushes the flames along the topography,

preheats the fuel that the flames will spread into.

It's a lot harder to control.

When we try to burn,

we try to use convective forces to our favour,

and a lot of times, the wind can overpower that,

and then just push the fire in directions

that sometimes we do not want it to go.

What we're seeing here

is pushing pretty hard across,

but, uh, if we did pop up now,

we might be able to slow it down and keep it high.

[Connor] Yeah, copy that. Moving up.

I'll take two torches.

Let's get this going.

Let's get this hot.

Want to start here, Noah?

I want a strip straight across.

Like this, this angle here.

Lucas, you follow.

Noah's gonna come back for one more,

and then you'll follow him back.

Try to build some heat over there!

All right, bring it back.

Let's build it in this pile here.

I want these drips a little quicker.

Let's walk it up a little bit higher.

Noah, go a little further out in a strip back to Lucas.

Ow!

[Connor] Box it up there, Lukie.

Okay, two strips back this way.

Luke, box here.

Guys, to the edge!

Box down, two back!

Okay, it's pulling nicely.

Two more strips back!

Yeah, let's get those extra three torches

bumped up to where you guys were there, please.

There's the wind.

I know.

Let's move down.

Goddamn it.

[Connor] We had significant uptick in wind,

and fuels drying out over recent days.

Standby, 1.

[Connor] Because of these moving pieces,

I feel like we were slow to the punch on this one.

Yeah, we're already a good distance down.

They can get going.

Let's back up.

As this gets closer, they're gonna wanna drop lower.

[laughing] Oh, yeah, that's fuckin' white across.

That's not very good.

To be up close to a really intense fire,

sometimes you feel very powerful,

and sometimes you feel very powerless.

[sighing] There we go.

Thank you.

You can do all the right things,

and just put in several days of really amazing work,

and then the wind shifts...

[grunting with effort]

Fucking shit!

...and everything you just did was lost.

[♪♪♪]

[Kelly] Southeast Fire Centre,

Valhalla 1.

[Kelly] Yeah, Fire Centre,

you can check Valhalla Unit Crew

as departed November 21453.

Uh, we're on good roads now, headed back to camp,

so no further check-ins for the evening.

Yeah, you as well.

Val 1 clear.

[Connor] Sometimes it feels really futile,

what we're doing.

[Connor] It comes with a lot of sweat,

a lot of dirt and ash.

Sometimes you're eating a lot of smoke,

but it also feels really good, you know?

You just know that you kinda put it all out on the line,

and hopefully, you get lots of successful days,

and if you don't,

you regroup

and tackle it again the next day.

[♪♪♪]

[door closing]

[♪♪♪]

Next week on Wildfire...

When it started looking like a volcano,

it really indicated

that we were going to be dealing with a major situation.

[helicopter overhead]

-We gotta hurry. -Daddy...

Let's go, let's go!

Up on the seat.

It jumped Okanagan Lake yesterday.

We're closer than that right now.

If the fire's too remote, we also have the rapellers.

We act as initial attack, and we access fires.

Uh-oh, there's a new fire.

That's not good.

The fire was moving too fast for any actions to be taken.

At that point, I just said, "No, pulling out.

Everybody out of here.

That's way too involved now."