Sitting on the BC side of the Yukon border with a 100,000 acre fire about 10 miles south of me. I have a fire pump and 7 sprinklers ready to go....winds on Monday Sept 11th gusting to 40 km/hr a canoe is my escape plan....anyone have advice other than praying for rain which I am certainly doing? Thanks

Don't wait to deploy the sprinklers. Start early. Saturate the ground and structures. Raise the humidity around your place. You would be surprised at how much fire a well managed sprinkler set-up can resist.

Pete
(firefighter for 54 seasons)

Sounds like Pete knows the drill . Prayers sent

Remove all dead brush and dig a fire line down to mineral earth if you have a chance.
Get a fire crew to camp near you is always nice.

I had the Tanana fire crew come in and cut all the brush in my yard last summer when we had a fire coming.

( I was a EFF)= grunt emergency firefighter)

150,000 acres and they have a total of 4 guys trying to keep a Hwy open....no support, on my own here.....testing everything and having a heck of a time keeping the 1 inch flat hose from kinking....ash started falling today and it's so dark I can't read without a light

Pete nailed it. Be pro-active and make your place defensible. Cut brush, move wood piles and saturate the area with your sprinklers. Remember, it has been a LONG season and the fire fighters are tired. If you make it easy for them to save yours they will focus on the "easy win" and work to save it.

Prayers for the safety of all firefighters.

Try to show the crew your pump setup in case you bail and they go to your place. Leave gas at your pump so they can refuel it to keep your sprinklers running. Stay out of the smoke (if you can!) you’ll get copd from it.

They started using a chopper bucketing water yesterday....the fire boss is flying to my cabin this morning to assess my efforts and add more sprinklers as required....and there was half an inch of rain last night....
Thanks guys

Good news! Sounds like you may have dodged that particular bullet. Hang in there; don't give up.

Pete

Amen, the fire boss landed by chopper at my cabin today to let me know I am out of immediate danger....the rain knocked the fire way back and some more is forecast....he inspected my sprinklers and said not to take them down for a week or so

Thanks for the prayers and advice

Any update? I hope everything worked out ok for you, 10mi is scary close with a big fire and high winds. I hope they got the fire under control with the rain.

Sorry, have been off line for quite a while.....the rain and snow really tamed the fire down by the end of Sept to just smoldering in the duff ....the thing burned so hot in certain ares there is not a trace of organic matter left....I will hike in next fall to several lakes on the south end of my line and see what's left for vegetation in the wet lowland areas...it's sad to see hundreds of square miles turned to moonscape..pretty much the lower third of my trapline won't be able to support Marten for decades....beaver and Muskrat likely survived in areas and will be able to continue....

Decades? I suspect it will be quicker than that .

With our close proximity fire they wrapped the cabin in poly. I guess that if a ember falls on the plastic it'll burn itself out.