Fire season was no longer defined by the summer months, but by a year-round apocalypse. We stopped referring to it as ‘one bad fire year’. Our present was increasingly becoming our future.

Climate change is mentally draining. Anxiety has spread for those whose feeling of incompetence makes them turn a blind eye, and for activists alike.

Caring, shadowed by the feeling of helplessness, has been a conflicting battle for me, but distracting myself from it has not silenced my conscience. The threat has proven itself imminent, the crisis undeniable.

I started out green, but I grew out of my naivety. “At least there is nothing left to burn after a fire,” is a myth I have heard too many times.

A few years before my time, saplings were planted outside Burns Lake—aptly named—at a cut block hours down a logging road. They had some time to grow; shrubs and small deciduous trees filled the gaps of the diverse forest it once was.

Then, in 2020, a fire wiped out all of the regrowth.

~

A year after that fire, I entered the graveyard.

It was my second year planting. My fellow tree planters and I spread out over the woodland cemetery. The blackened deciduous trees loomed over me like charred headstones. There was no life left.

Bags filled with saplings gaped open on my hips. They were heavy, but the silence in the air was heavier. I squeezed between tree trunks, cracking branches as I pushed through the dead giants. Their cries echoed with each wooden creak.

I felt like I was trespassing. Humans were never supposed to be here, and now there’s nothing left.

Miniature Christmas trees decked in orange needles displayed the failed human effort to bring life back to the valley. Some stood at just three feet. Many had been reduced to twigs.

I was tasked with replanting spruce and pine among the black crust. Dust flew up, disturbed with each strike of my shovel. I was usually soiled with dirt, but here my gloves were covered in smut.

Once all of the trees were in the ground, we packed up our camp into a five-ton Bow Mac truck and convoyed our company pickups to Alberta. We stopped to plant for a few days in Whitecourt before settling down again about an hour and a half west of Red Deer.

My crew arrived late that night. Under a flashlight, Fred pulled us aside before we could set up our tents.

Only a week after our departure from Burns Lake, all of our efforts had gone up in smoke. Nothing else was said. We mourned in silence.

I was with Fred when he received an inReach message from Nadia, one of the crew bosses. The smoke was so thick where her crew was planting that she called in to report a fire and promptly executed a ground evacuation.

Nadia and her crew drove back toward camp while Fred and I headed toward our helicopter to go investigate. It was stationed with another crew about 30 clicks away.

Like all our trucks, Fred’s F-350 was once white at the beginning of the season, but was now so dirty it looked as though it had been painted beige.

Fred sped down the unkempt logging road while taking blind corners up and down hills. I experienced the thrill of the ride from the passenger seat—unlike his, my seatbelt was well fastened—as we listened to the Interstellar soundtrack. I began to associate the music with impending doom.

Don’t ask me why I went with Fred; I was simply at the right (or wrong) place at the right time.

Once we reached the helicopter, the pilot took us in the air to get a better survey of the situation. A wall of smoke followed as a fire rolled across the valley. I could never forget this ride.

We flew closer.

Below, I could see that a Wildfire Service helicopter had just landed by the smaller fire. Ground crews were starting to spread out.

Having gained a good visual, we circled back to land from where we took off.

We got back into the truck and drove up to the edge of the fire to talk with the wildfire fighters. They seemed to have the flames well under control. Still, I stayed in the truck.

A scar formed on the ground as the flames traversed. Fred had to fully assess the situation as he carried the responsibility of potentially evacuating 80 people.

What roads were safe to take? How long did we have before it would reach our camp?

The smaller fire had sparked from ashes blown a few kilometres over from where the larger fire was. Those ashes landed right where Nadia’s crew had been planting. She made the right call to get out of there when she did.

One of the wildfire fighters in charge said we would be safe from where we were.

There were valleys and rivers that filled the gap between the fire and our camp, which gave us more time before the fire would reach us. Fred and I drove back to camp.

A few days later, my crew and I drove past Nadia’s block. It was unrecognisable. The entire mountainside was gone. What had started as a small fire had taken everything in its path to destruction.

From then on I slept in my tent, ready to leave at a moment’s notice.

We were able to divert some of our planting elsewhere to stay a couple of days longer before finishing the season. We said our goodbyes and parted ways in Alberta. A group of friends and I carpooled back to the Okanagan.

But that August, I was welcomed home with worse news.

The Whiterock Lake fire burned for 830 square kilometres right up to the Okanagan Lake, threatening the entire city of Vernon. Forest fire signs posted on highways and outside fire halls indicated an ‘extreme’ warning.

I finally had a bed again, but I was still on evacuation alert. I avoided stepping outside; I could hardly breathe through the smoke. The air was tinged with a particular shade of yellow—a shade that stained an uncertain future.