That fiery glow

It was two years ago to the day that we were cut off by a wildfire to the south that threatened our community with evacuation and almost shut down the Suzuki Valhalla Institute.

The 2009 SVI starts today and overnight the smoke has rolled in again. I smelled it all night and this morning when the sun came up it threw an eerie yellow-orange cast rather than its usual transparent light.

The fire is a long way from us, probably 70-80 kilometres, but it's uncontrolled, and they're attempting prescribed burns to help contain parts of it. So there's a lot of smoke. We can barely see the top of the mountain we live near the base of through the haze, and everything smells like a campfire.

It certainly brings back memories of 2007.

This year's SVI T-shirts are royal blue, a cooling, cleaning, water-inspiring colour. Let's hope that helps.

What it's really about

Yeah, they're working on technique. They're refining their ensemble-playing skills. They're polishing their shared repertoire, getting the input of new teachers, performing, sharing ideas and inspiration. But this, this is what it's really about.

It's about the pleasure of being in the same place at the same time, and doing the same thing as a bunch of like-minded families and their amazing kids. It's about the chemistry between kids like these, who are having the most fantastic week getting to know each other. Hurrah for trips to the beach, for picnics and barbeques, for time off between classes spent playing on the teeter totters in the children's playground, hurrah for improv class where they tease each other both with words and by playing musical jokes on each other with call & response improvised riffs, and hurrah for the amazing faculty who clearly love working with teens.

A P.S. for those wondering about the fires. The major fire nearby seems to be burning itself out against some rocky bluffs in the high country. A single lane of the highway re-opened this morning with pilot-car shuttling. Half-hour delays to wait for the convoy, but that beats a three-hour detour hands down.

Martin Mars

The magnificent Martin Mars water bomber was working the Springer Creek fire here on the lake yesterday. It can scoop and drop 60,000 pounds of water in a single drop. Its aerodynamics defy belief -- how can that thing stay aloft at such slow speeds?

It's not just air tankers they're bringing in. There are a lot of people being brought in from the outside to help out with fire and emergency services. Tonight we were driving to the Kohan Garden for a walk along the lake, and to take photos. We got stopped by a highway flag-person whose job it is to inform people of the road closure 10 km south. He was standing at the main highway intersection in New Denver. I rolled down my window to reassure him that we weren't heading that way.

"We're staying in New Denver," I said. He nodded and started to wave us through.

"Wait!" he said, second-guessing himself. "New Denver ... that's the town on this side of Silverton?"

"Um, yeah," I said. "It's here. You're standing in it."

"Okay," he replied, not even looking sheepish.

Wonder where they find these people?

Saturday evening wildfire update

Nothing of note to report since this morning. People are arriving for the SVI. The air quality remains pretty good. There are no new evacuations. The highway, which runs just below the bright orange spot in the photo, is not going to be open for a while yet obviously. The fire has grown a lot in the last 24 hours, but most of that growth has been in an upwardly, easterly direction. (This photo looks due south.)

This year's SVI T-shirts are white and orange on dark green. Fitting, somehow, don't you think? We won't be repeating that colour scheme in future years, let me tell you!

Saturday morning wildfire update

Our power has stayed on. There was a community meeting last night. With just three hours notice the word got out and the school gym was packed. The good news is that if the phone line goes out, there will be an alternate line linked up within a couple of days -- they're already working on it. More good news -- there are two routes into our community that are not threatened. They require large detours (up to two or three hours) if you're coming from the south, but they're open. And our power is not in jeopardy. The back-up system they've placed is functioning fine, and there are back-ups for that back-up.

The bad news is that whether the fire grows aggressively towards homes is entirely dependent on weather and geography. The firefighters are throwing lots at the fire -- the magnificent Mars waterbomber has been working here, as well as four helicopters and over two hundred firefighters.

The meeting certainly displayed an interesting cross-section of our community. Our emergency co-ordinator, a middle-aged lady who runs the natural foods store, proved herself clear-headed, resourceful, witty, diplomatic and incredibly efficient. The village mayors were their regular common-sense nice-guy selves. Most people were very respectful, understanding and willing to offer help and do what was necessary if things should deteriorate. And then there was the lady who asked why no one was organizing an effort to help wild animals like birds that might get injured by the fire. And the other woman who suggested community prayer circles and a rain dance.

The fire is 10-12 km south of us. A few homes have been evacuated. No homes have burned. About 200 people have been placed on evacuation alert. The town of Silverton, 5 km south of New Denver, is not on evacuation alert. There are two big creeks between us and the area the fire has spread to so we do not feel at all threatened.

We certainly feel a bit guilty about the fact that we're in a sense responsible for bringing almost 200 people into the area tomorrow for a week's music workshop. But it's too late (and would be incredibly costly to an organization that has no financial reserves) to cancel the institute. Our faculty are already arriving, thousands of dollars of accommodations costs and honoraria are payable. The skies are clear and the whole situation will likely just gradually resolve over the next few days.

Wildfire update

The sky is almost clear of smoke today, but the fires are behaving badly. The one to the south has jumped the next creek, the highway has been converted into a firebreak (meaning they've bulldozed rubble onto it) and is closed indefinitely. Friends are being evacuated up towards us. Our phone line out of the community is threatened by this fire. They've brought in the big water bombers but winds were picking up this afternoon and the fire is still 0% contained. We're safe, 12 km north, but feeling increasingly cut off.

We're told power will be off again within the hour. I only got 6 of the 10 dozen muffins & squares done, but we'll make do -- and hopefully this is a briefer outage. Take note of the things I've done since getting a call twenty minutes ago: put the Nanaimo bars in the fridge, melted some cheese on corn chips for "supper", run through a pot of coffee, run the load of laundry with my new shirt in it, and posted on my blog. Now you know what's really important in my life. Pathetic, isn't it?

Burned off the grid

On Wednesday we had a (rescheduled) piano lesson, so we planned that trip to be our major grocery expedition. We have three intensive weeks of music school coming up and I know from experience that there is no time to shop. I'm also hosting about 35 kids and parents of SelfDesign families attending the Suzuki institute here for a barbeque on Sunday. So to say this was a major grocery shopping trip would be an understatement.

On the way to Nelson we drove past the forest fire south of us. It's about 15 km south, no threat to us, but the smoke and flames have been visible from town, so we were interested to see what the fire was like as we drove south. It was pretty impressive. The sun was an orange disc that would could look directly at through the smoke. The fire was within about 150 metres of the highway in one spot. The photo above is SOTC (straight off the camera, no digital editing) at our place. The yellow-orange cast is on everything and it's really obvious at a casual glance in real life.

Piano went well and we did our grocery shopping and headed for home, with a pit-stop for lunch at a café we like that's closed on our usual Nelson day, and to check out the little archery supply place at Noah's request (he's now eagerly counting his pennies).

When we arrived home the house was dark. We discovered that a small fire 50 km west of us had burned through the sole power supply lines to our region and power was off to our entire region. It seems beyond comprehension that there is only one line supplying our area. Isn't it called a "grid" after all? I mean, doesn't grid imply interconnectedness? Well, apparently we're on a power spur, not the power grid. There are areas to the east, south and west of us that have no electrical supply, in other words, they're off-grid areas without power poles and transmission lines. I knew this but I hadn't thought it through. One line -- gone. Estimates were that depending on the fire conditions, restoring power could take as long as a week or two in a worst-case scenario.

Well, my worst-case scenario involved $400 of rapidly warming groceries, an empty gas tank, a Suzuki institute with 81 students starting next Monday, 12 faculty to provide for, the aforementioned BBQ and a heck of a lot of computer work left to do before the institute starts. Not to mention children and laundry and dishes and cooking and bathing and all those mundane things. One to two weeks???!!!!

Things are never as bad as they seem, though. The big faculty welcome dinner happens to be in the restaurant at a backcountry resort that is off the grid anyway and has their own power-generating system. The dental clinic had a generator they were willing to let my mom hook her photocopier up to in order to churn out the last few hundred pages for the registration packet. Around the 24-hour mark our friends offered us their generator for a couple of hours to re-chill our freezer and refrigerator. I made a solar shower out of garden hoses and found the camp stove and the bulk propane adapter. I managed to send a bulk e-mail out to the institute registrants via the hospital computer system, as they have an emergency generator. And one of the local gas stations had generators running on their pumps and despite long line-ups and a lack of cash, I managed to dredge up enough small bills and coins to purchase a third of a tank of gas, enough to get us through the institute at least. I had just purchased some solar garden lanterns last week, and they screw off their spikes nicely and come indoors at night, providing ample clean-and-green lighting. Our wind-up radio has been terrific at keeping us informed.

The kids played outside, and with each other, and practiced their instruments. Noah and Fiona played numerous games together this morning, totally self-motivated and with great enjoyment of each other's company. Erin and Sophie counted, sorted, folded and labelled the 80-something SVI T-shirts. Kids did chores, read fiction and history, made their own fun and hardly complained at all.

And then, amazingly enough, the power came on late today. They say it's temporary, that there will need to be more significant interruptions for a definitive repair, and likely some brown-outs as well. But life is good. I'm madly trying to get 10 dozen muffins and squares baked for next week before the power goes off again, but since I know people have been wondering (our valley has made the national news on CBC radio today!) I thought I'd post an update.

We have lots of ash drifting down, but the smoke isn't bad and the fires are still far away. And we're so thankful for friends with generators, and our cold deep-freeze.

Nocturnal heroics

The deed is done. Under cover of darkness, we managed the Stealth Wasp Manoeuvre suggested by Rebecca. First the bucket, then the blue plastic crazy carpet, then the piece of 3/8" plywood. Noah eagerly documented the whole affair with the camera. Chuck and I managed to walk without tripping up to the steep bank at the northeastern edge of the property and place the board on the ground. He stepped back and held the flashlight. I removed the bucket, then picked up the plywood and gave the whole nest a mighty heave down the bank. No swarming ensued.

Altogether I think the kids were disappointed by the lack of drama.

However, we'd just come from the lake, where we'd been watching the nearby forest fires flare in the dark. The drama there, under a dome of bright stars, definitely outdid the Wasp Stealth Manoeuvre. There are two fires visible down the lake, one near Enterprise Creek and the other further south at the head of the lake in the Springer Creek drainage. They're both pretty big and uncontained, but mostly burning upwards, away from homes and roads. Bright bursts of orange flames were visible on the ridges. Things are hot and dry here again, despite the almost two weeks of rain and cooler temperatures we had in mid-July.