Asher Damian - Inside the inferno: a firefighters story of the brotherhood that saved Fort McMurray

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Copyright 2017 by Damian Asher with Omar Mouallem

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Front Cover Image Getty Images

Back Cover Image by Kyle Hitchcock

Author photograph Aaron Pedersen

Jacket design by Elizabeth Whitehead

Asher, Damian, author

Inside the inferno : a firefighters story of the brotherhood that saved Fort McMurray / Damian Asher, Omar Mouallem.

Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 978-1-5011-7112-3 (hardcover)ISBN 978-1-5011-7114-7 (HTML)

1. Asher, Damian.2. WildfiresAlbertaFort McMurray.3. FirefightersAlbertaFort McMurray.4. Fort McMurray (Alta.)History21st century. I. Mouallem, Omar, 1985, authorII. Title.

SD421.34.C3A84 2017363.3'90971232C2017-901255-X

C2017-901256-8

ISBN 978-1-5011-7112-3

ISBN 978-1-5011-7114-7 (ebook)

Photograph on 7 courtesy of MagMos/Shutterstock.

Photograph on courtesy of Captain Damian Asher.

Photographs on 35 courtesy of Captain Adam Bugden.

Photograph on courtesy of Chris Relph.

Damian Asher dedicates this book to all the children, wives, husbands, brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers of the members of the Fort McMurray Fire Department, as well as the members of the departments that came to our aid.

A department is a family, and without your support, no member would have been able to do what they did in this historic event.

Its a dedication to you members who have moved to Fort McMurray for a job and have made it a home, to your support in our community and to your choice to protect it by laying your lives on the line.

I am humbled to be in your presence and to call you family.

Omar Mouallem dedicates this to his parents, Ahmed and Tamam.

This book is a narrative construction derived from Damian Ashers telling of the Fort McMurray fires, as well as some twenty interviews of firefighters, locals and wildfire experts. Innumerable weather and government reports, news articles and event timelines were studied to find the most consistent evidence of the truth; however, the authors have taken some creative liberties.

While most characters are based on real people and are depicted using their real names, a few names have been changed, and some characters are composites. The authors have re-drawn conversations and story dialogue, in most cases based on the recollections of those involved. Some public figures appear who were instrumental to true events. In earlier chapters of the book, some scenes were composed to dramatize an average day at the fire hall and to introduce characters to the longer story. These decisions were made thoughtfully and with both the subjects and readers in mind.

Theres one road in and one road out of Fort McMurray, and that one road was gridlocked. The whole southern lane crowded with cars too slow to outpace clouds of smoke chasing them from the north. The sky, hardly visible through the smoke, was a sea of flames three hundred feet tall in the boreal forest surrounding my city. My city that had turned black and orange in an instant. My city on fire.

Ten minutes ago, Id arrived at Fire Hall 5 on my afternoon off. When I was called in, the town was hazy but visible and the highway lightly trafficked. By the time Id buttoned my shirt, laced my duty boots and packed my bunker gear as a precaution, the winds had quickened to sixty kilometres per hour and shifted northeast towards us. I was racing out in a fire engine before the bay door touched the rafters, driving alone into the inferno.

Turning onto the highway with sirens blaring, I dodged cars trying to evacuate from the city. They were climbing from the ditches, barrelling across parking lots and jumping curbs as flakes of burning ember rained on them. The way out of town was bumper-to-bumper and side-door-to-side-door, five lanes of vehicles on a three-lane road, and the northbound route was filling with southbound traffic too. I crushed the air-horn button and swerved into the centre lane, sharing a millisecond of eye contact with the drivers I passed, enough for me to see the fear in their eyes. And now Id find out for myself what it was they had seen.

The radio hissed. Captain Asher, its Training Officer Kratochvil.

Yeah, go, I snapped back.

I saw you leaving the hall. Ive got the new recruits. Were following you in. A white Ford F-150 swerved behind me, the bed filled with a crew of kneeling firefighters holding on for their lives. Where are we going?

Beacon Hill. Thats where my kids go to school. The radio hissed with other chatter, other neighbourhoods under threat, but everythingreports, sirens, honking, the worldit all muted as I imagined Taya and Aidans classrooms filling with smoke.

My wife and I had received the email from their elementary school, asking for parents to evacuate the students. Shed have to come from the grocery store downtown, but judging from the surrounding mayhem, any town road would be equally gridlocked. The lineup for fuel at gas stations flanking the highway snaked onto arterial streets; the Flying J gas station had no lineup because it was on fire. Roadside onlookers stood in harms way, gobsmacked by flames on the filling stations roof, flames in the grass, flames across the western horizon. Trees lit up ten at a time as an inferno crested down the valley, carrying flames tall as cellphone towers searing in the hills. Cars scraped each other and people ran up and down the sides of the roads. It wasnt just people in a panicdeer pushed out of the bush by the heat were galloping into town, nearly causing road accidents.

Melanie! Mel! I shouted into my cellphone. Her voice was too faint to hear above the sirens, horns and roaring winds. Did you get them?

She said something about a traffic jam at Save-On-Foods.

The fires hit Beacon Hill. Call Pam! Call Pam! Pam is our neighbour and the school librarian. She could bring them home.

I tried, I tried, I tried. Melanie repeated it enough times that I heard it clearly. I told her I loved her and tossed the phone on the passenger seat.

As I approached the intersection of Beacon Hill Drivethe neighbourhoods single entry and exit point, like Highway 63it was utter chaos. Police officers directing traffic in respirator masks were trying to keep control and move vehicles out. My air horn cleared a narrow path for me to cut through the traffic and enter Beacon Hill. The crew tried to follow my tracks but couldnt keep up. In the haze, I had no clue where I was going until I spotted a school-zone sign.

Good Shepherd School is across from the hill bank, and far from the Hangingstone River, where the wildfire was thought to be contained. But the blaze had done the impossible and jumped two rivers, climbed up the valley and crawled a hundred metres from the only road protecting the children. I braked by the main doors, in the school bus lane. The playgrounds and soccer fields were quiet. The parking lot was empty. It was Tuesday afternoon, but it looked like a Sunday, so I left.