WHERE SMOKE AND MEMOIR MEET
TOM SANDBORN
Chasing Smoke: A Wildfire Memoir Aaron Williams | Harbour Publishing
“Above that, trees burn. They flare up in groups of two or three, the taller balsams being the most impressive to watch. Sheets of flame unfurl from their branches, sending black smoke into the sky to join the mother ship cloud of grey smoke hanging permanently in the air above us.” — Aaron Williams, Chasing Smoke
Imagine waking at dawn in a cold tent, bolting down breakfast and jumping into a mud-splattered truck that carries you to the edge of a raging fire. Picture spending the next 16 hours hauling hoses, spraying water, falling trees with chainsaws and grubbing out underground embers with hand tools, choking on bitter smoke. Welcome to the world of B.C.’s forest firefighters.
If you have ever wondered what it is like to fight fires on the steeply pitched mountainsides of the province, Aaron Williams’ new memoir, Chasing Smoke, is for you. Williams, already an experienced firefighter in 2014 when he was hired to work the season he records in Chasing Smoke, provides the reader with vivid, richly observed stories about the hectic, dirty, exhilarating and exhausting adventures he and his team, the Telkwa Rangers, experienced during the season.
Every year, our province hires close to 1,000 workers to fight forest fires. And the challenge seems to worsen each season. In 2017, for example, wildfires charred 1,216,197 hectares of B.C., more than a third of the land burnt out across the country. Global warming is making wildfires more extensive, and the incursion of human habitations into what was formerly untouched bush means that more fires start and more of them threaten settlements.
Williams is a born storyteller and his colourful anecdotes capture the high-energy work under terrible conditions that he and his workmates endured every year. He also provides vivid character sketches of the brave women and men who share the smoky side hills and cut blocks with him, and chronicles with admirable honesty the moments of spite and competitiveness that inevitably occur as stress and exhaustion mount. This is a fast and entertaining read and important background as we think about the public policy challenges for a province in flames. One such challenge that should be addressed as soon as possible, the need to ensure that more of the relatively high-paying work goes to First Nations firefighters, does not appear in this competent, but necessarily incomplete, account. It does, however, offer much food for thought. Recommended reading.