On August 28th, we had the thunderstorm from hell. Lightning lashed, thunder boomed, and we all cowered in the cabin as the forces of Nature roared with wild violence around us.
For the first time in our years here in Port Neville, lightening struck the mountains behind our cabin. The storm brought a miserly amount of rain, barely enough to wet the soil, and so the conditions were ripe for fire.
In the aftermath, three fires burned on the ridges behind us. Now, like much of the rest of the province, we are on fire watch. The winds have been fierce, and we are downwind of one of the fires, which has left us very worried. Over the days since the storm, one of the three fires has been declared “Out” by the BC Wildfire Service. However, they don’t update their site unless new reports on a fire’s status are received, so the other two remain listed as “Out of Control”, including the one which concerns us the most.
So now we wait … it rained a little last night and this morning. I am hoping that the fires have been dampened or even extinguished. There is no real way to know. We’ve hiked in as far as we can to see if we can spot smoke or flames, but to no avail. There’s been lots of air traffic lately, both helicopters and small planes, and we’re hoping that some of these are the BC Wildfire Service keeping an eye on things. One helicopter in particular looks like it might be carrying a thermal scanner on its landing skids, so maybe the eyes in the sky are watching out for us …
Thankfully, the fire that worried us the most (due west of us on the map) is now being rated as “Under Control” by BC Wildfire. Still … it’s been very concerning to us … the monster behind your back that you can’t see has the largest fangs!
The fire is now declared out … what a relief!