A group of friends trapped on a mountaintop near Invermere earlier this week had to be rescued by helicopter from a fast-moving wildfire.
Sage Randal was hiking with her friends Monday on Mount Bruce.
The skies were clear when they started the hike but about an hour later, they noticed a small plume of smoke near their picnic.
Within minutes it turned into a raging wildfire.
“After lunch we started getting our backpacks on, getting ready to hike back down, and we noticed just a tiny plume of smoke,” Randal told Global News.
“So one of the guys I was with ran up to check and see what it was because we couldn’t quite see where it was coming from. And he yelled back to me, ‘It’s a fire.’ And we didn’t believe him. We’re like, no way. Like, there was no signs of fire.”
Randal said the group wasn’t sure if they should run down to the car but by the time they even tried to make a decision, the fire was already growing.
She called 911 for help.
“Within minutes it was like, this is a huge forest fire and it’s 100 per cent between us and the car,” she said. “We can’t get to the car that way. So in my head, I’m thinking, OK, well, search and rescue isn’t going to get here in time before it reaches us on the peak. We’re trapped up here.”
As the group thought about running away down the backside of the mountain, out of nowhere a helicopter rose through the smoke.
It turns out, Glacier Helicopters had been dispatched to the area for reports of smoke and the pilot happened to see Randal’s car at the bottom of the trail.
“They flew around and came very close to us and we ran out waving our arms in the air,” Randal said. “And then they did a circle around and landed and they just got out of the helicopter and ran toward us.
“I hadn’t even finished giving the report to 911, and they still had to reach out to search and rescue. So I didn’t know what was going on. I was so flustered.”
BC Wildfire officials say anyone hiking in fire season should be prepared to deal with forest fires but Randal said there was no way they could have prepared for that.
“I know it’s fire season, but I’ve just never even thought about the fact that a fire could just randomly ignite. When I’m on the peak of a mountain between me and my car, that’s just not something that I’ve ever thought about,” she said.
“I genuinely don’t know what you can do in that situation other than carry a satellite phone to connect with emergency services and I guess know the area, like check out the area beforehand and know if there is another trail you can get away from (a fire), that kind of thing.”
Now known as the Horsethief Creek fire, it is an estimated 1,020 hectares in size and was suspected to have been caused by lightning.
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