Harrison FSR forest Fire

My wife and I had an interesting camping trip this weekend. We went up to Wood lake on the Harrison FSR (forest service road) gorgeous little lake its quite small and really shallow so the water is warm. The shore is quite muddy and silty so we took out a couple of air mattresses and paddled to the middle of the lake and swam.

Anyways Sunday morning at around 11am we were sitting at our picnic table playing cards when a helicopter flew over the campground carrying a water bucket. didn't think much of it thought maybe it being the long weekend they were out on patrol making sure no one was being stupid (here in BC it has been so dry that we have had a fire ban for almost 2 months). Anyways the helicopter flew over and within a couple of minutes got louder and louder and heard the campsite next to us saying that it was landing in our lake. Needless to say the whole campsite ran to the lake shore to see what was going on. Over trees on the other side of the lake there was a HUGE plume of smoke and the helicopter was loading water into its bucket from our lake. The camp host was there to reassure us that at this point the fire was no larger than a couple of campsites along the road and would be told if we were in danger.

Within approx. 30 minutes to an hour the smoke plume became and now there were 4 helicopters fighting the fire larger and we were told that the fire was at the 20km marker of the FSR a bit dis-concerning as the campsite was at the 19km marker (south of the fire). We were told the fire was moving north and at this point some families began to pack up and leave on their own. My wife and I decided to pack up our gear just in case we were evacuated we could be the first on the road.

We went down to the beach to watch the helicopters at this point the smoke was larger and there was now smaller airplanes and the helicopters fighting the fire. We heard via word of mouth from other campers the fire was approx. 4 hectares and they were bringing up the martin mars to deal with the fire we watched form the lakeside as the planes and helicopters dropped fire retardant and water on the fire. within another hour or so the martin mars came and dropped a couple of loads of water on the fire. And at approx. 4:00 the camp host and RCMP came around telling everyone that we had to evacuate the campsite, as my wife and I were already packed we hoped in the truck and were among the first people out.

Later that night we heard on the news that the fire was approx. 15 hectares when we were given the evacuation notice, not the 4 which we had heard from other campers. The fire is still now on Tuesday afternoon not under control and has ballooned to over 600 hectares.

Just a reminder to everyone to be smart when you are out in the woods, they are so dry right now that it doesn't take much for a little fire to become something so large and destructive to our outdoor playground. We have a friend who works for the police dispatch and she told us; on Monday afternoon the RCMP put out 12 campfires in Agassiz, their excuses "they didn't know there was a campfire ban".

 

V10370 Wood lake fire.
0% contained..

http://bcwildfire.ca/hprScripts/WildfireNews/OneFire.asp?ID=567

 

650 hectares and 0% contained.

This is the last picture we got at the lake before we were evacuated. Approx. 11 hectares at the time.