Summary
In this bonus conversation, Adam catches up with Fern Yip (guest producer on FE2.3) about her recent close call with wildfire, with lots of practical advice for those living on forested lands.
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Show Notes and Credits
Learn more about Fern at earthkin.ca
Find Earthkin's September workshops in Vancouver: earthkin.ca/rewilddays, and a 10-weekend course September 2023 through June 2024 at Anderson Lake: earthkin.ca/waysofthewild
See also: BC's Emergency evacuee guidance for the public
This episode was produced by Adam Huggins, and engineered by Mendel Skulski, with music by Thumbug.
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Future Ecologies is recorded and produced on the unceded, shared, and asserted territories of the WSÁNEĆ, Penelakut, Hwlitsum, and Lelum Sar Augh Ta Naogh, and other Hul'qumi'num speaking peoples, otherwise known as Galiano Island, British columbia, as well as the unceded, shared, and asserted territories of the Musqueam (xwməθkwəy̓əm) Squamish (Skwxwú7mesh), and Tsleil-Waututh (Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh) Nations - otherwise known as Vancouver, British Columbia.
Transcription
Adam Huggins 00:01
Hi!
Fern Yip 00:02
Hey, I'm gonna put my headphones on here and oh my gosh, look, that's fun late night studio sessions, right?
Adam Huggins 00:09
Yeah, you have a nice white background, actually.
Fern Yip 00:11
I do well, it's just a wall. And I just kind of adjusted the light so that it actually is like, Oh, this is actually not too bad for
Adam Huggins 00:17
Yeah you look like a passport photo.
Fern Yip 00:20
Perfect. Perfect. That's what I'm going for. Official.
Adam Huggins 00:24
Hey, everyone, Adam here. So as most of you are probably aware, Canada has been on fire this summer. And those fires have become an ever present fact of life for so many people, including some friends of the show. I recently had time to catch up with my friend Fern, who heads up a land based learning center in the interior of British Columbia, called Earthkin. But for longtime listeners, you might remember her as our guest co host from Episode 2.3, which we called Communia Omnia. Our conversation felt so timely that I just thought I'd share part of it with you. It foreshadows things to come, both on our podcast, and in the world around us. So here it is.
Adam Huggins 01:15
Can we just... the last time I saw you, you were headed up into the interior? And you're gonna start a wilderness education school, essentially. Right?
Fern Yip 01:26
So that is the last time I saw you. Yeah, I was just embarking on that. And I'm a few years in, you know, so there's been a lot of passion, effort and all that that's gone into it
Adam Huggins 01:38
Oh I bet. Has it been what you wanted it to be?
Fern Yip 01:43
Yes. When I feel into the potential of that place in building a really strong network of people connected to the land, it's it's becoming a lived reality, it is a lived reality. And so I still am in that vision, making it come to life.
Adam Huggins 02:04
Yeah. And where exactly is your school located?
Fern Yip 02:09
In ponderosa pine, Douglas fir country. So it is more of an interior ecosystem. Stl'atl'imx home territory in between Pemberton and Lillooet on Anderson Lake. I've been running adult courses there this past year, which has been delightful just being in that work and being in this very wild place and bringing people to that wild place to really connect with each other and with nature. And actually, just a couple weeks before the fire came through, I had brought this big dream vision to life of this 100 person ancestral skills gathering, which is called Earthkin Gathering. And it was a week long gathering that happened on the land and just seeing people camped out there and sharing and learning really old skills of land based living,
Adam Huggins 02:59
And that was just earlier this summer.
Fern Yip 03:01
Yeah, it was over the long weekend in July. So it would have been, I forget the dates like June 30, to July 5,
Adam Huggins 03:10
That feels like yesterday. I know, like I know what I was doing that weekend.
Fern Yip 03:17
And the funny thing was, is during that week, the fire ban was rescinded. Because there had been enough rains that had fallen the week previous. So we actually got to enjoy outdoor fires. And then the very last day of the gathering, the next day, the fire ban was put on again, two days later, that's when that tiny little Casper fire started 10 kilometers from us. And we thought it wouldn't get to us, because my really rudimentary understanding of fire behavior was that fires just generally move upslope, and the direction of the wind. And because we were downslope of where the fire was initiated, I think we were under the false sense of safety that it just wasn't gonna get to us. But in these times where we're having climate trends in this particular region of the world have long periods of hot weather, it was just the perfect recipe for this fire to just get completely out of control. And the night when we really realized it was going to hit us, the winds were so powerful. And we were watching this fire. It was a kilometer away from us. We're looking up at the ridge above our place. We live on this large lake, 28 kilometers. And at this point the fires burning from the lake to the Alpine, like the entire mountain slope just roaring across. And so the wind picks up we're looking up at the ridge at nighttime. And I'm familiar with this ridge. I've walked this ridge many times before and I know there's old growth ponderosa pine and Douglas fir and I knew it was those trees that this fire was just candling up and just watching the spectacular, terrifying show of these old growth trees shooting up into like, literally 200 foot flames in the night sky and just this awful sound. And then it was a crown fire and it's just like racing across the ridge. And in that moment, I was just, I was terrified. I was like, we're gonna lose everything.
Adam Huggins 05:36
Were you guys evacuated at some point? Like, was there an evacuation?
Fern Yip 05:40
There was, yeah. So we were on evacuation alert for a week and a half before we suddenly got put on evacuation order. And the order was issued at midnight.
Adam Huggins 05:53
But you decided to stay?
Fern Yip 05:54
We did. Yeah, so when the actuation order was issued, we did have the police come down to our place with the fire warden, giving us the official like, it's time for you to leave. And we were giving our response of, we're gonna stay and defend and protect our property the best we can. And actually, the night of when the fire was like, really descending towards us, we had the incident commander of the wildfire actually boat in and walk up the steep hill towards us and plead with us to leave. And he shared with us that he was from Lytton. We all know the story of Lytton. And yeah, he was just like, really just giving us a reality check. Like, hey, these fires can kill people. You know, if the fire gets dangerous, like, please, please just go forth with your evacuation route, which we're lucky we're like, we're just gonna run down to the lake, you know, and hop in boats. But I don't know, you know, I don't know what it's like to be in a crowd fire or to be asphyxiated by smoke. Like, these were all fears that were like, this is a potential situation we could face in choosing to stay.
Adam Huggins 06:59
What was the decision like? Was it a no brainer? Or did you have to kind of struggle with it?
Fern Yip 07:07
Once I had made the pivot to be like, Okay, this is what we're going to do. It was easy for me to be like, This is what I'm committed to. And we were as organized as we could be. Yeah, it was an excellent team. So I think having that solidarity was really helpful. And we really care about our home. That's the other thing it was like this is, you know, this is the dream of my lifetime to be able to have relationship to have access to land in that way. So for me, everything was on the line.
Adam Huggins 07:45
So give us a little lay of the land, where is your place in the landscape? And how is the fire moving towards you when it starts to come at you?
Fern Yip 07:53
Oh, my gosh, this is fascinating. Well, that where we're located is like, it's the elevation of the lake or property stretches from the lake shore, and then it probably about 200 meters in elevation gain. It's 120 hectares, 40 hectares of it has like infrastructure on it. And then 80 hectares is actually wildlands, like in a land trust that we've created. So it's a pretty large forested land. And we decided when we were assessing, like, what can we actually protect, we kind of like whittle that down to basically a small area around our infrastructure was probably just like, maybe 15 hectares in in size. And the fire was coming down above us higher in elevation. Basically, the embers were getting sent downwards and racing towards us from the top. That's what it looked like. But one thing that I learned about fire is that it doesn't just burn upslope. And it doesn't just burn in the direction of the wind. It burns wherever there's fuel, and there's fuel in all directions. It just burns at different rates, where there's, you know, it'll back burn against the wind. It'll move downslope, but maybe a bit slower than it moves upslope and with less intensity. So at first, I thought the fire was approaching us from one front. But after some of us did some scouting work, we realized the fire was actually approaching us from all directions. And I learned this fire behavior thing where it was like the fire was moving in these tendrils. It would extend a tendril all the way down to the lake. And if it wouldn't hit the lake, then it would move upslope which is freaky because that's when it becomes a crown fire.
Adam Huggins 09:33
How long did it take to get to you from like the ridgeline when you were talking about at night watching the fire?
Fern Yip 09:38
Let's see it probably took actually like 12 hours, even though I felt like it was going to be there right then. It was a long wait. And so we had time to like, make our firebreaks better, like thin the forests you know, it's like the fires 200 meters away and I'm like using this electric chainsaw and just like thinning and knocking down ladder fuels. You know, we have been doing small prescribed burns, we've been thinning and doing small prescribed burns on the land for the last two years. And every single piece of land that we've worked, I was so grateful for when that wildfire came through. I mean, I think the lesson is like, in these times, if you are choosing to live in a forested area, you also need to do the work of tending the land, to mimic fire processes in the ways that you can, so that it's safe for human habitation but also bettering the ecological community too. So you know, at the point, when we were like, in that super intense 24 hours where we were really like, in battle mode against the fire, we were creating fire breaks on all three sides. Because one is like lakeside, but then all the rest of it, we were working really hard with pickaxes and chainsaws to make our firebreaks, which are essentially digging to mineral soil for about a meter wide length, and knocking down ladder fuels and thinning trees. And then the fire, you know, mostly came as a ground fire towards us. And you just kind of stand your line, you just wait until the fire gets to you and make sure it doesn't cross that line. And the only moment or the fire became a crown fire was when it actually did sneak down beneath us and sort of traveling upslope. And then it just like caught ladder fuels and then got into the crown. And then that moment, I don't know why. But it is the moment we got help from BC wildfire, and a helicopter came and dumped like 20 buckets of water on that spot.
Adam Huggins 11:40
That's miraculous.
Fern Yip 11:42
We were like thank you. And I'll just say like, what I will also share about what allowed us to succeed is that we really had a very supportive network, and a lot of people that have become connected to this land that really value both the place and the people. And it was just this incredible flood of support where people were arriving on boats, like by the boatload as hands on the ground boots on the ground and bringing us like hundreds of meters of hose and more pumps, and food and pick axes and anything that we needed, which is just real, really lucky, and also very privileged that we receive that kind of support in a very quick response time.
Adam Huggins 12:31
I mean, you're out there doing village building, right. And it seems like you've created a strong community up there.
Fern Yip 12:41
Yeah, I definitely got to really see that. And I think crisis moments bring that out the network of people becomes visible, because people choose to show up because they really care. Yeah, it's just amazing to basically be you know, like, so exhausted, and have haven't received any sleep pretty much for 48 hours. And then there's just like this friend that just shows up out of nowhere with a chainsaw, and is like, Alright, I'm ready to sign you off and, and dig some trenches, you know, and -
Adam Huggins 13:13
Call those chainsaw angels around here. They're everywhere
Fern Yip 13:15
Chainsaw angels!
Adam Huggins 13:16
Come out of the woodwork
Fern Yip 13:18
Definitely was grateful for those chainsaw angels.
Adam Huggins 13:27
So at what point did you realize that you had succeeded?
Fern Yip 13:31
I think just there was just a knowing that like, we had stopped the fire, wherever it approached first and be like, Okay, we want that battlefront. Now, let's put our resources to the second one. Okay, that one's been stopped there. And then beyond that, there's the vigilance time of like having people on 24 hour watch for root fires that might creep in, or little embers that might be sent from who knows where. And then for days, and days and days after, actually. And I was really lucky, I have a friend who is both a wildfire ecologist, and has worked wildfires for like, three decades. And I got his advice. I said, Hey, this happened. What's your protocol for monitoring our perimeter that we've protected? Because I'm really worried about root fires, you know, they can burn seven feet underneath the ground, they can burn for years sometimes, what should we look for? And he just gave me this bomb proof protocol of what they do. And we monitored it very carefully for a week and a half after and then kind of with less and less vigilance as time went on. And as the possibility of root fires was like, eliminated, but we had to work for that, like we had to. I remember the first day after basically watering and digging out root fires for a full day on all of the perimeters. So it continued to be effort. Yeah,
Adam Huggins 14:53
It's just incredible. I guess you won these battles to protect this little piece of land. And, but a lot of the rest of the land is burned and certainly all the surrounding areas, what does it feel like being there?
Fern Yip 15:05
Yeah, I've had a chance to walk through the land and just sit in the burn. And in my body, undeniably, there's just a heaviness. It's grief. The devastation is just so real, like the loss of life that happened. I mean, all of the shrub life, all of the plant life, the foliage is burnt to a crisp, and there's dead trees all around, who knows what small mammals didn't escape, insect life, birds, maybe there's like little fledgling birds and nests that didn't... like I just feel the loss. And usually, all the times that I've sat or walk through the burn, I just cry. Even though at an intellectual level, like, ecologically speaking, I like know that that's what the land needs to be renewed. And that all of these species are fire adapted, and will come back with more vigor. But like, at this time, you just feel the presence of death really heavily. And at first, you know, I was like, it's all burned, it's all dead. But when I walked through the forest, and I'm looking up at the canopy, some of the fire burned thrown away where it stand replacing, and it's like clear, every single trunk is crisped up, there's no foliage in the trees, they're dead. But other places, you know, it's like a trees half green, half black, and I'm like, Well, maybe that tree will survive, maybe it won't. And then other places, it's more like a just a ground fire. And the trees are actually the canopies all green. And it's just the shrubs and the plants that are completely gone. So it is a mosaic. It did seem to burn through in a patch-like way, although on a very large scale. It just brings so many questions of like, how this resets the successional process? And yeah, I'm just full of more questions really about it all.
Adam Huggins 17:05
So am I.
Fern Yip 17:05
Yeah. I'd love for you to take a walk through. I know you didn't see it before. But there's going to be so much learning about ecology over the years in the decades to come about how a forest renews itself. And then just questions about like, well, you know, the intensity of fires now are usually more so than they were historically. And what's the difference between the fires of today versus the fires of 150 years ago?
Adam Huggins 17:32
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I can't wait to get up there and take a walk around and see what's up. I am just really happy to hear that you guys are alright, that you're alright. And that you were able to save something that you loved.
Fern Yip 17:47
Yeah, absolutely. I feel really lucky actually. And granted, you know, when people go and wander on the land, it's going to be a different kind of wander than it was when it was just fully super alive forest. But I think it's still going to be a place where... yeah, it's still it's still nature, you know? Yeah.
Adam Huggins 18:17
So that was my conversation with Fern, and I really appreciate her being willing to share her experience with us on Future Ecologies. I think it's important to note here that this conversation isn't intended as an endorsement of ignoring evacuation orders. Earthkin survived due to a combination of factors, such as the preventative actions they took on the land before the fire arrived, strong community support and grit during the fire, a timely aerial intervention from BC Wildfire that might have diverted resources from another location, and also just sheer luck. When people choose to deny evacuation orders, it can create serious risks and challenges for response personnel and potentially harm the overall fire response. So what I took away from this, and what I hope that you take away is that living in the forest means living with fire. And the resilience that we generate in the landscape, and in each other, when the fires aren't burning, is what might matter most when they are.
Adam Huggins 19:21
In the coming weeks and months, we're going to be talking a lot about fire again. I honestly can't believe it, but it's been four years since we released the last installment in our ongoing series "On Fire". And so much has happened since then that we need to discuss. By the way, before I go, you should check out our website for photos of Fern's fire breaks, and of the Earthkin Learning Center at Anderson Lake after the fire. It looks like a tiny island of green in a sea of black and red. It's truly extraordinary. If you're in BC and you want to learn some really useful Earth-based skills, check out Earthkin's offerings. Fern's got several workshops coming up in the first week of September in Vancouver, and then weekend courses up at Anderson Lake all through the winter, starting on September 8. You can go and see how the land is recovering for yourself and meet some great people. We'll put some links on our website, futureecologies.net, and you can find Fern at Earthkin.ca
Adam Huggins 20:18
Alright, that's it for now. Take care out there.