Another Memorable Fire Callout

 Here is an account of another “fire callout” that I had to respond to in 1991:

    Toward the end of July, I was at home after work, but on fire backup.  Our Forestry officer got a report from the observation plane that circled our forest district looking for fires, that a small plume of smoke had been spotted curling up from the middle of a forested area east of the West Twin Creek.   I received a radio call to investigate and so I drove out Highway 16 to try to find it.  

            From an old logging cutblock on the opposite side of the West Twin Bridge that overlooked area on the east side of the creek,  I finally spotted a wimpy plume of smoke.  I figured that the only way I could locate it in the bush was to take a compass reading and hopefully compass my way to it.  I took whipped out my compass and took a reading, then drove back across the bridge and parked,  then with my compass in hand, I headed out through the forest.

    Evening was approaching and finding a small fire in the middle of the large forest by walking through the trees, seemed akin to finding a needle in a haystack, but following the compass I bushwhacked my way through the woods, and after an hour of walking, I was amazed in finding a lone smoking cedar that must have been hit by lightning.  The tree was hollow and smoldering inside.  Having no water or tools, there was really no way for me to put the fire out, and it did seem possible that the fire might spread, so I radioed back to the office and they told me just to hike back out since nightfall was at hand, and deal with the fire the next day.

    Since I knew that the highway was somewhere below me and made a curve around me, instead of hiking the hour in the direction I had come, I decided it would be an easier hike just to “shortcut” through the forest to the highway then walk along the highway back to the truck.  I figured that would be quicker.      

        Unfortunately, I was wrong.  I hadn’t realized that although the highway did make a curve, it was a very side curve that curved away from where I was, so instead of being a quicker route, it ended up being a whole lot longer.  

        It was just about near dark when I finally reached the highway, then it was a 2.5 kilometer hike along the highway, back to where I had parked the truck.  I tried hitchhiking, but no one would pick me up, so I had to walk the whole distance.  By the time I got to the truck, driven back to the office, and then back home, it was 11:00 PM.

    The next day I repeated my hike back to the burning cedar leading a crew of four firefighters.  They sawed down the smoldering cedar and extinguished the fire.  Having learned my lesson about taking a “shortcut”  back to the truck, we hiked out the same way we had hiked in.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Remembering a "Call Out" For A Forest Fire

     I worked for the BC Forest Service for 23 years.  Every spring Fire Protection, drew up a weekly schedule that assigned one staff member as the Protection Officer, and another employee scheduled to be “on call” if smoke was reported.  I was often “on call”.  That meant that I got a small amount of pay for being ready to respond in case I was needed.   I had to stay close to a Forest Service portable radio or to my home phone, in case of a call.  Other than that, I could live my life normally at home.  I also got to take Forestry pickup truck home, so I could respond to a “call out” from home.

    One evening I got a radio call from the Protection Officer, saying that a driver had reported .  I was told to drive out there and investigate.  That was all of the information that was given, so I didn’t really know what to expect when I got out there.

    It took me twenty minutes to drive to the West Twin Bridge and after crossing the bridge and starting the climb up the long hill, I got to an area where I did see a small whiff of white smoke drifting out from the trees on the right side of the highway.  I parked the truck on the side of the highway and made my way into the forest where the smoke was coming from.

    I didn’t have to go very far inside the trees, before I could see the source of the smoke.  It was a small campfire, and hunched beside it was a surprised man cooking his supper.  In talking to him I discovered that he was a bicycler, who had decided to pull over and spend the night camping in the woods.  (During the summer numerous long-range bike riders pedal up and down the hills of Highway 16 traveling from McBride to Prince George.  I always feel sorry for them because it is such a long, hilly, uninteresting endeavor without much rewarding scenery, just trees.  Doing that trip on a bike, always seemed to me like it would be torture.)

    I always hate to play the “Heavy”, but I needed to in this situation, given my job.  I told the biker that he couldn’t have a fire out there in the woods, and I pushed my authority and made him put the fire out, and not be doing it again.  The guy seemed chastened, and extinguished his small fire.  I am sure he was taken by surprise when I interrupted his supper in the middle of nowhere.  

    I radioed back to the Forestry Office to report what I had found and how I dealt with it, then I drove back home to resume my evening.

My paintings can be seen at:  davidmarchant2.ca

My Morning Search For Inspiration

     After I painted a square on my painting this morning, it was time to write my blog, but I didn’t really have anything to blog about, so I decided just to head outside, and walk around the pond, hoping for some kind of inspiration.  There were some nice clouds against a beautiful blue sky, so I took a photo of that.  

    As I walked the path around the pond, I did disturb a small frog, who leaped into the water.  I watched a handful of dragonflies circling and darting above the water, and the neighbor’s cat was walking down the path toward me, until she saw me,then turned, and silently retreated the way she came.

    Once my pond walk was finished I headed up to the garden to see what was happening there.  The pole teepee I had constructed for the scarlet runner beans, was colorful with its orangish blooms, and a couple of deep red poppies that were blooming, added a nice accent to the scene.  The pinkish-red hollyhocks made a nice photo.  The purple clematis climbing on the garden’s fence also made for a colorful sight.

    While my walk didn’t give me one dramatic inspiration, seeing all those various things did make me appreciate the beautiful things that I have around me.  All I needed to do is take the time to notice them.

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

Evacuation Legacy

     Sadly summers in BC now mean wildfires, and at present there is a horrific one going on in the southern third of the province.  In Summerland, BC twenty-two thousand people have been evacuated: forced to leave their homes without knowing if there homes will still be there once the fire has ended.

    Hearing about those fires, is a constant reminder for me of the forest fire hazard that surround our house.  Luckily so far this year, we have been blessed with periodic rain and showers, so our fire hazard isn’t very high, but who knows what the future will hold.

    When we had to evacuate in 2023 because of a forest fire that swept across the mountain slope across the road, we scrambled to pack up our valued possessions.  I am reminded of that daily, because a lot of those things still sit in crates, because we never put them back where they were.   Above you can see the crates that hold my diaries and old papers from my life.  In the blue container, I have old videos of family and trips we had taken.

    In the photo below are more containers of photos that still sit behind our couch in the living room.  They are ready to go in case of another evacuation call.  

    All this reminds me that I have taken the canopy off of my pickup truck in order to haul big chunks of unwanted willow chunks to the dump.  I really should get that job done, so I can put the canopy back onto the truck, just in case we need to load up all of our important things again in case of another  evacuation.

    

Take a look at my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

The Packaging Seemed A Bit Excessive

      This blog is about something that happened in 2016.  I had forgotten all about it, but I think it deserves another blog posting:

   The other day when I went to the post office to pick up the mail, I found a card in our post office box that said I had a parcel.  The previous week I had ordered a new electric toothbrush so I figured that must be what had arrived.  I gave the card to the postmistress and she walked into the back room and came out carrying a huge big cardboard box (see photo above).

     I wracked my brain trying to figure out what it could be in the big box.  It wasn’t heavy.  I couldn’t think of anything that I had ordered and I couldn’t imagine anything that anyone would send me that that could be so big.  I put the box in the back of the car and drove home.  At home I quickly opened it to see what was in it.

    Amazingly, it was my electric toothbrush.  Talk about excessive packaging. 

    Below is what was in the giant cardboard box, beside a lot of stuffing to protect it.

My paintings can be seen at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Grave Robbery

    As a youngster, I developed a deep fascination and interest in American Indian culture.  I dreamed of being an archeologist discovering and digging up artifacts of ancient civilizations.  Of course, none of that ever happened, but even today that interest remains. 

    In 1982, I was told that my brother-in-law at the time, knew of a Native American gravesite.  If I remember correctly, some relative and his friends were over in Kentucky fishing in a river and a bone came sliding down the slope beside the river.  They investigated and found a hole dug in the hillside and more bones.  James had later gone out there with his relative and saw the site.

    My imagination was fired upon hearing the story, so the next time I went down to Indiana for a visit I asked if a trip out to the burial site could be arranged, and Jim took my mother and I over to see it.  We drove across the bridge to Kentucky, then down some country roads, walked through some old fields and woodlands, and got to the grave site.

    It seemed like a wonderful site to bury a loved one.  The slope of the hill overlooked a river below and in the distance, through the trees, you could see the Ohio River sprawling out in the west.

    But I was appalled at what I saw in the present day.   A small chunk of the slope had been carved away, and strewn around the area were human bones.  The grave robbers were only interested in the Indian artifacts which they could sell on the black market, and cared not at all for the human remains.

    My reaction to the Indian burial site was not at all what I had expected.  I thought it would be so interesting, but instead I found it depressing and disgusting, thanks to the tomb robbers, who cared nothing about the history or culture, only of money.

    I urged my brother-in-law to contact someone involved with Native American history to make them aware of the location of the grave, but I don’t know if he did or not.  Certainly, there wasn’t anything left of cultural or historical value on the hillside.

    I recently discovered some of my lost slides and these were among them.  They still generate a feeling of disgust after all these years.

You can see my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Firewood Envy

     I was never an envious person.  I saw things that other people had, but I just accepted the fact that they had stuff and I didn’t.  I really didn’t spend time being envious of their possessions.  There was however, one exception-- Firewood.

    Back in 1977 when we bought our house and property, it was heated entirely by a wood stove and the BC winters were cold and long.  It was always a major priority of mine to cut, split, and stack enough firewood to get us through the winter.  That was a big time-consuming job that required a lot of physical exertion.  I was constantly on the lookout for trees that had blown down or left after logging, that I could get for firewood.

    I was always envious when I saw the huge stack of cut, split, and dried firewood that some of my neighbors had and wished that I could be in such a condition, instead of hunting wood, getting it to our house, splitting it by swinging a splitting maul, then stacking it.  It was always such a big operation that I had to carry out every year in preparation for winter.

    Lately getting firewood has not been such a major chore, and that’s a good thing, because at my age, I no longer have the strength and endurance that I had when I was a young man.   One of the reasons that getting firewood is not such a big job now, is that our winters have not been as cold as they used to be, and every spring I still have firewood, that I didn’t need for heat, left over from the winter.  

    I now have access to an electric wood splitter that is on loan from a friend, so splitting wood is now quicker and a lot easier than swinging a maul.    Another reason is that we now also use electric baseboard heaters in the house to keep us warm, so we don’t have to use so much firewood.

    This all came to mind yesterday, when I noticed just how much firewood I have stacked and ready to use this winter.  It is nice to be in the situation where I no longer envy those people with their big ready supply of firewood for the winter.

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca