Odds `n’ Sods — Where there’s smoke . . .

Although July 1 in Red Lake, Ont., was hot and dry, it was a perfect day for the town’s annual Dominion Day celebration.

The day’s activity’s were to consist of team fire-fighting competitions, hand-mucking and drilling competitions among individual miners, a baseball game and, later that evening, a dance.

At 10 a.m., just before the team competitions were to get under way, a few of us with seats on the roof of the headframe saw, to the southwest, a column of heavy black smoke that appeared to be emanating from a relatively small forest fire. None of us was overly concerned, however, even as the early morning humidity gave way to the heat of the sun.

That summer had been one of the region’s driest, and large fires had been burning east and north of the mine. Just 10 days before, smoke had blown in from a fire in Manitoba and reduced visibility to less than 100 ft. in a hour. Our fire, however, seemed small and far enough away that we felt we could continue with the competition. The youthful engineering fire team, after all, was defending its record.

At 11 a.m., with the engineers on their way to victory, staff from the Department of Lands and Forests arrived in Red Lake and put us on evacuation alert. A quick look at the sky to the southwest showed us why. Fuelled in part by 30-mile-per-hour winds, the fire had increased in size and was now only four miles away from the mine.

Within half an hour, word had spread throughout town that everyone was to gather at the mine dry should evacuation by bus be required. No one was to bring more than he or she could comfortably carry, and medicine and baby necessities were top priority. With the help of the cookery staff, a makeshift kitchen was set up in the dry, and a number of teenagers established an activity area for the children. People in various states of excitement and anguish arrived with pets, photo albums and family heirlooms tucked under their arms. When the hour was up, the community, for all intents and purposes, was empty. The few who remained were looking after the water supply and a series of fire pumps supplied by Lands and Forests.

A number of us were pressed into service as extra fire fighters and wound up on a fire line on the southwest side of town. Others were manning strategically placed pumping units, and had instructions to wet down as large an area as possible. Those of us left behind were assured we would receive plenty of notice should we have to evacuate our posts.

At 1:30 p.m., the wind shifted ever so slightly to the west, and, by mid-afternoon, the fire roared past the minesite about a mile to the south.

The town was spared and no one was hurt. We soon turned the pumps off and spent the rest of the afternoon rolling hose and retrieving equipment.

That evening, a number of us gathered at the house of the assistant manager where we regaled each other with vignettes of our experiences that day. With all the excitement, however, several of us forgot that we had appointments with some of the young ladies of the community to attend that evening’s dance. Instead, we spent the night swapping stories while the ladies tried to find us. To this day, my wife still reminds me of the night I stood her up.

— The author, a consulting geologist and frequent contributor to this column, resides in Thunder Bay, Ont.