Okay, one last post about the fire. I promise I have more to talk about than just this fire. But it really is fitting for what I want to share this week. I have already told you about how the fire started in part one here, and my experiences fighting it in the county in part two here. Now I want to share a little bit about what happened in the townsite. You can tell from the picture below it is a pretty small town right in the middle of some of the most gorgeous scenery possible. It really is my little peice of heaven. It is one of the places outside of the temple that I feel closest to my Father in Heaven. And last year it was in serious danger.
You may remember that when the fire entered the park it started cruising down the canyon at a speed of almost a football field a minute. This fire was so hot and intense that it hit the top of every rating scale that could be used to measure it. This monster of a fire burned down the valley and reached the townsite that night. Once it did, the mountainside all around the town became a raging inferno.
But when that night finally ended, the town was still there. With a fire this hot and moving this fast there shouldn’t have been anything left but ashes and concrete foundations. But there it was in the end, almost completely untouched by the fire.
There is only one reason that the townsite survived, preparation. They had almost 12 days from the time the lightning strike started the fire, to the night that it reached the townsite. Those 12 days were busy. I already told you some of the ways they tried to fight the fire or at least steer its path in my other posts. While all of that was going on in the mountains, the townsite was very busy as well. There were more than 160 firefighters in the townsite at any one time. They came from fire departments all over the province. There were multiple departments, agencies, and companies all lending equipment and resources. They spent days fireproofing yards by removing combustible material, even cleaning out the gutters on roofs. Sprinklers were placed on nearly every rooftop to help keep them cool and wet. A special fire-retardant foam was sprayed on some of the more vulnerable buildings to give them extra protection. Miles and miles of hose were laid. Special pumps were brought in by heavy equipment and even by helicopter to supply water to those hose lines. A couple of those pumps were used just to push water from the lake up to the fire trucks assigned to protect the historic Prince of Wales Hotel on the top of the hill. Then a perimeter of hose with large sprinklers was run all the way around the town inside the treeline. These sprinklers ran for several days to make sure that everything was as wet as possible before the fire got there. Inside the town, fire trucks patrolled the streets to protect the homes and structures in case a hot ember were to land and start a fire, or the fire broke through the perimeter.
When the fire got there, there were some crazy moments. The crew that I was supposed to be working with was stationed part way up the Prince of Wales hill next to a stand of trees. Because the Prince of Wales hill is so high they had to have water pumped from the lake up to them, and then use the fire truck to pump the water the rest of the way up the hill to the other fire trucks. Even when the fire was heading right toward them they stood their ground and fought to protect the truck. If they had failed, other firefighters who relied on them for their water source would have also been in danger. The firefighters in the townsite worked all through the night to keep the town safe. Even when a shed full of aviation fuel exploded and lit up the sky like it was noonday they kept fighting. And they won.
You can see in the picture above what a remarkable line they held. The green trees and grass of the townsite stand almost completely isolated from the devastation that tore through the forest around the townsite. If they hadn’t had those days to prepare, the townsite wouldn’t have made it.
You and I are blessed to have a warning system of our own. We have living Prophets and Apostles, and personal revelation. Six months ago was the last General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I listened to those conference sessions. Some I listened to that weekend, and others I had to catch up on after the fact. More importantly, I tried to listen for the spirit. I have tried to be meek, as Elder Bednar counseled, and to not assume the messages were for someone else. I have tried to read or listen to the sessions over again. As I did I heard the voice of the spirit prompting me. I did my best to follow its guidance, even though I couldn’t see the spiritual flames coming down the valley at me and my family.
There have been moments these past six months that could have gone very differently if I hadn’t heeded those promptings. There have been times of anguish, grief, loss, and personal pain that I could not have seen coming. I don’t know what would have happened if I hadn’t followed those promptings. I am glad I don’t know. I am glad that what I do know is that my Father in Heaven loves me. And those promptings made it so I could get through these six months with the ability to look back and say with complete honesty that they have been the some of the greatest months of my life, even though they were hard. I have developed a deeper love for my Father in Heaven and my Savior. I have learned to hear the whisperings of the spirit a little better. I made my share of mistakes and I still have a long way to go, but I have confidence that the guidance and strength I need will be there when He knows I need it.
Conference is coming up next week. The next six months of your life are going to put things in front of you that you cannot anticipate. I promise you though that if you will prepare yourself, and listen carefully to the spirit, you will hear the messages that you need. You will know where you need to set up spiritual sprinklers and pumps, you will know where to seek help from, and maybe what in your life needs to be cut down and removed. This conference can be the beginning of the best six months of your life.
Here are some tips from lds.org on how to prepare for General Conference. You can see the whole post here if you want to see more details about each point.
