Hi I’m James, just some guy in a rural community who had some firefighting experience and helped organize his fellow rednecks into crews who were able to work along side BC Wildfire on the Rossmore Lake fire. (And also the webmaster here)
Here are some of the photos from my camera roll presented in roughly chronological order.
These were all shot with my iPhone in the moment. Sometimes I was “capturing a moment” but often I used photography as a way of date/time/geostamping an event, so I could go back later and look at the metadata on the image to tell where/when something had happened.
There are also a bunch of videos I’m in the process of uploading. When they’re up, I’ll update this page.
Clicking on a photo will expand it. Once it’s expanded you can swipe/use arrow keys to go forward or back.
These images are not to be used without my permission, you can contact me at james[at]kcrs.ca
The day it took off, as seen from down by the mall.
This might be the first photo taken of the Rossmore Lake fire. I was driving down from another fire to the southeast and saw this and said, outloud, even though I was by myself: “On no, that’s going to be a big problem.” I was right.
The first day when it all blew up, Terry H. trying desperately along with probably at least a dozen other of us to squash it. This exact area here is what would turn into a crown fire/conflagration about two hours later, as seen in the videos that ended up getting shared internationally.
What you’re looking at is the epicenter of where a tree once stood. Those circular tunnels emanating out are where roots once went. The fire cooked off the tree, and then burned down the root structure, all while leaving the surface grass green.
The things you find while coldtrailing..
Classic Redneck Firetruck scene. My elder son Darwin on the gate.
Good example of the type of terrain we were dealing with on K22024, and how it spread
Life finds a way!
Life finds a way! Just two days after a wildfire flashover
This is the aftermath of the area that we had been fighting the first weekend, what was featured in the video of the crown fire.
Incomplete burn. Subterranean burn. The grass hasn’t even properly cooked off, but you can see how the ground itself has smouldered. The smoke in the background is where it’s volcanoed up.
Good example of how fickle fire can be. The fire burned hard enough to knock this sapling over, then burned halfway up its length before basically just giving up.
Hull Hill from Goose Lake when it was all popping off.
When we say “dig down to mineral earth”, this is what we mean. Notice the layer of duff/soil that’s just a little longer than a shovel spade. Below that is what won’t actually burn.
Dehydrated fir needles having fallen to the ground after incomplete combustion
Even our TNRD Rep Doug Haughton (“Dougie”) came out and did the S-100
Look closely. This is actually a shot of a subterranean fire, a little glimpse into a hole hidden in the ground that is burning away. There were thousands of these on this fire. This is what commonly keeps fires going. Pour all the water on it you want, this survives.
Example of a typical junction
Training new recruits in the middle of fire season
FRIENDS!
K22024 at Kullah Lake from Hwy 5A
This was a hard day. I remember seeing our friends from BCWS on the chopper, at the end of the day, at the end of a very hot, intense day, and kind of being like SHRUG!?
It was so smoky
I’ve said that wildland firefighting is mostly emergency landscaping. Here we were doing some emergency fencepost relocating so a cat could get in to cut a guard in the dark at Bill’s place.
Patch exchanging ceremonies
Puerto Rican Friends
Brazillian Friends
Checkpoint Charlie
We had the best lunches! The community came together and every single day we had almost too much food. Our lunches became famous on the fire, and were the source of no small amount of jealousy. I wish I’d taken pictures of every day’s meal because they were so impressive. I’ve never eaten so well.
Classic Knutsford scene
Notice how white and clean that burn is
My younger son Orion on “the earth itself is on fire” duty
Brazillian bros heading into it with the help of our hoses
You may be wondering what this is a picture of. The tree in center was long dead, and semi-hollowed. The fire had wicked its way into the tree then chimney’d its way up until it popped out halfway up. Below, we had a crew of Brazillians and our translator had been called away. I remember pointing at it and saying “DANGER!” and the crew underneith started spraying it with water. NO. MOVE AWAY. They aren’t used to fighting fires like this, they told me later via a translator.
There’s never a convenient time to get a flat, but some times are less convenient than others.
A good example of structure protection without water. The majority of structure loss from wildfire is not caused by direct flame contact but embers blowing in. Some tarps were a wise decision.
Just look at all that fuel. Then consider it’s 30C and drought conditions. To me this photo is more terrifying than anyone with a gun.
A good sample of what the forest floor was like
A wild Mikie appears!
Gigantic slash piles we spent way too long babysitting. Iverson bro for scale.
Typical meeting in the woods
Good example of what we’d run into. Subterranean fire bubbles out at smaller firs. These turn into laddering fuels. The correct course of action is to limb these guys down (remove the lower limbs so the fire can’t climb into it) and THEN dig it down and hose it off.
An awful lot of resources were spent babysitting these slash piles, which were in the middle of a very hot zone. They never did catch.
Just thought my truck looked badass
Random piles of kit
Night ops doing mop up off the road.
Night ops doing mop up off the road
There was a Pizza Party!
We had a Pizza Party!
Costa Rican friends
After work safety meeting.
With Costa Rican friends
What you see on the ground is the needles. The fire flashed through so fast that the needles didn’t even completely combust, and then a wind comes through later and blows them all down onto the floor like confetti.
With our Aussie TFL nearing the end of the engagement
The spots are from where birds have come in after the trees have cooled and pecked at it.
Keeping the bladders topped up
Is this a danger tree?
On the last day Terry & I took a drive up to Rossmore Lake, the namesake of K22024. Despite all the havoc it had caused, somehow the camp sign remained intact.
An award we asked Nat to design to give to Fred, who’d just moved to the area two months prior yet ended up putting in arguably more time than just about anyone else.
