The Thorhild fire

Going out to the country is a stress reliever. Forest fires are not.

On Friday evening we were on the way up to our lodge near Smoky Lake for a relaxing long weekend, when we saw smoke billowing on the horizon. Our first reaction was “that must be the Bruderheim Fire.” Firefighters had been struggling to get that fire east of Edmonton under control on Thursday and Friday. But the location didn’t seem right. As we got closer, the location was clearly in the vicinity of our lodge and the clouds of smoke looked more and more ominous.

We were listening to our favorite radio station, CKUA, when suddenly the program was interrupted for an Alberta emergency warning system announcement. The fire was in the northeast part of the County
of Thorhild, right next to the County of Smoky Lake. All residents of the small town of Newbrook were to leave immediately. And, the main highway (63) was closed to traffic.

We heard this announcement just prior to passing the 63 turnoff and sure enough the road was blocked by police. At this point we I could see orange hues at the bottom of the clouds. The fire was still a good 40 or 50 kilometes (25 – 30 miles) from our property but the weather was hot and windy, and it was blowing exactly in the direction of our place. The smoke was reminisent of a tornado, dark and threatening, narrow at the base, but widening across the sky.

I wasn’t scared but I WAS concerned. I didn’t know how fast the fire could travel. We heard a couple more alerts on the car radio and when we arrived we looked for our portable radio so we could keep tabs on the situation. Unfortunately, we forgot that we had taken the radio home last year when we closed the lodge, and we hadn’t brought it back. And we don’t have tv (by choice).

We ate our supper on the back deck overlooking the valley with a good view of the smoke and I browsed on my BlackBerry to see if I could find any more information. I tried the Alberta Alert Website, Alberta Environment, and CKUA. All of them had information “about” the emergency warning system, but I couldn’t find anything about the state of emergency in the County of Thorhild. I tried CBC news and found only reports on the Bruderheim fire. It surprised me that in this day and age the alert was not on the web as well as on the radio.

By the time we went to bed the smoke had died down considerably and the wind had changed direction so I didn’t feel as worried. The next morning dawned sunny, warm, and without billows of smoke on the horizon. We went into town and bought a paper to find out more. We learned that on Friday night the fire had jumped highway 63 and had burned more than 1200 hectares. More than 150 people had had to leave their homes. Two homes burned. Thankfully no human or animal losses were reported. Firefighters had it under control.

We head out to our lodge each weekend because we love the peaceful tranquility of the country. In fact we love it so much we’ve started a web site on the rustic lodge lifestyle. Seeing fire so close made us painfully aware of the dangers of fire out in the countryside.