A mild fire could have quickly have become a wildfire if not for the quick response of Suzanne Paley and Fred Engels.
On Tuesday, April 12, at around 9 a.m., Paley noticed a plume of smoke emanating from the trees in the area of the Sicamous landfill. The concerned Two Mile resident drove up there to investigate. At the gate she found Engels, of Mara, who had unknowingly arrived at the landfill an hour early. Paley and Engels spoke briefly, and the two made their way back to the trailhead for Sicamous Creek Falls. There, they made their way up the Lizard Trail, and quickly found the source of the smoke. A log that holds part of the path in place was ablaze, as was the base of a nearby tree.
“We didn’t have any tools, so we just grabbed sticks, and started to beat it out,” says Paley, estimating the log to be about 15- to 20-feet long. “The centre that I started beating on broke away and went flying down the hill. It was just a big ember, the centre of the log. It rolled right down into a big, dead bush, so I chased it down there and rolled it over onto the path, and joined Fred back up top beating on the rest of the log.”
Paley says she called the non-emergency number for the Sicamous Volunteer Fire Department, and was put forward to the district which, in turn, put her through to the landfill. Eventually, Engels was able to get through to the deputy fire chief, but says he and Paley were told little could be done because the burn was happening outside of the district’s jurisdiction.
“Apparently, just the parking lot is the district and the rest of it is the ministry, that’s why nobody was up there right away,” said Paley, adding that eventually a Sicamous fire crew attended the scene. “They dug around the tree and brought the big logs onto the path and chipped away at the bark on the tree that was burning. They did a good job to make sure it was all out – dug it up pretty good around there.”
District administrator Alan Harris said that he and works services manager Grady MacDonald made their way over to the site of the fire, and were soon followed by six members of the fire department, who proceeded to extinguish the flames and smouldering material. Harris says that in order to fight the fire, permission was first needed from the Ministry of Forests.
“It’s a matter that if it’s outside the District of Sicamous, on Crown land, we have to get authority from them, a pass number to go deal with the fire,” says Harris, who adds that in the summer, when the fire risk is extreme, the ministry provides an automatic pass number. “That was one of the reasons why the deputy chief was trying to get the number from the ministry while Grady and I went up there. We just wanted to make sure where it was in relationship to the district boundary.”
As for the cause of the fire, speculation is that it was human caused, perhaps from a discarded cigarette butt. Which is why Paley and Engels want to get the message out that, even though it isn’t blistering hot out, fuels on forest floors are still volatile.
“I really just want people to be informed, because I went through the Kelowna fire and it happened fast,” says Paley.
Phil McIntyre-Paul, spokesperson with the Shuswap Hut and Trail Alliance, a steward of regional trails, credits the actions of Paley and Engels for caring for the trail and keeping an eye on it.
“It’s a wake-up call that it didn’t have to be the dry season, the fire hazard rating doesn’t have to be dragged over on the red side for it to trigger,” says McIntyre-Paul. “Kudos to Suzanne and everyone throughout the region who’s just stepping outside and saying, let’s take care of this place we call home.”
Harris says the damaged part of the trail will be restored.
