UBC researcher films scary drive through smoke and flames
Short video captures intense flames and black smoke during drive on Highway 20
After filming her harrowing escape from the B.C. wildfires, a Vancouver forestry researcher worries that with ongoing climate change, such devastation is now “the new normal” for the province.
Sally Aitken, associate dean for research and innovation at the University of B.C.’s Department of Forest and Conservation Sciences, said a two-week vacation to her recreational property in the west Chilcotin region was cut short Monday when smoke nearby grew and she and her husband decided to flee.
Aitken said they weren’t ordered to evacuate and the situation didn’t appear too threatening as they passed fire crews, burned areas, residual flames and light grey smoke.
But around 8 p.m., as they drove through the community of Hanceville, the flames grew larger and the smoke became black.
Aitken’s 45-second video, shot on Highway 20 just west of Hanceville, captures some of the most intense flames as they raced through the destruction for 40 minutes, she said.
In her short video, flames burn on both sides of the highway as Aitken urges her husband to manoeuvre away from them and speed up. During the last seven seconds, the dark sky glows orange and the road is barely visible due to smoke.
“I think the big shock was when we just entered darkness,” she said. “It was like driving with no headlights in the pitch black in the middle of the night.”
The fire changed direction and accelerated with the wind, Aitken said. She and her husband felt intense heat as they watched their car’s exterior temperature gauge climb by 10 or 15 degrees Celsius to reach about 35.
They eventually arrived home safely in Vancouver.
Aitken said researchers in her field are concerned about the impact of climate warming and shifts in precipitation patterns, which have moved the fire season earlier and extended it, too.
She said B.C.’s wildfires now have more fuel — living and dead plant matter — than before because of past successful fire suppression and because an early, wet spring led to good plant growth this year.
Dried-out trees killed by pests such as the mountain pine beetle have only added to the problem, she added.
“All of those things are coming together into this really extreme fire season and we’re only in the very start of it,” she said.
Many trees within these fireadapted ecosystems — big Douglas firs with thick bark, for example — can endure the flames or re-sprout afterward, she said.
But with any further buildup of fuel there is the potential for ongoing destructive fires that are impossible to control.
“This is the new normal, potentially,” she said.
Aitken stressed the importance of governments and communities planning fire-hazard mitigation through such methods as controlled burning and removing fuel buildup.