“The community of Logan Lake spent 18 years preparing for a wildfire they hoped would never come. Then, in 2021, it did.”
That is the tagline that filmmaker Vesta Giles uses for her new documentary film The Test, which has its world premiere at the Paramount Theatre in Kamloops on April 7. The film looks at the events leading up to, and what happened during, the Tremont Creek wildfire of 2021, which began east of Ashcroft on July 13. The fire forced the evacuation of Logan Lake a month later, and for a time it appeared that the town might be destroyed by fire only six weeks after most of the Village of Lytton burned to the ground.
Giles, who is also a screenwriter, made her first film in 2018, and in 2019 made The Dirt Chix, a documentary about female mountain bikers from Kamloops, through her company Vandeloso Productions. “I love storytelling and I love the visual aspect of filmmaking, and I can control both those aspects through directing,” she notes.
She has also been the branch head of the Logan Lake Library since 2009, and has a deep attachment to the community.
“Because I’d worked there for so long, Logan Lake is my people. I was there the day the community was evacuated, and all I could think of in that whole week I was away was ‘This is the test, this is the first time this has been tested, is it going to pass the test?’”
“This” refers to the signs outside Logan Lake noting that the town was the first FireSmart community in the entire country. The program began there in 2003 thanks to the determination of then-mayor Ella Brown, who is one of the many people interviewed by Giles for the film.
“It was a last-minute Hail Mary to get Ella Brown, who was there when it started,” says Giles. “She talks about how there was resistance in council and the community, and how she had to educate people about why [FireSmart] was so important, how they were in the middle of forest and one second away from wildfire. The 2003 fires in Kelowna, Barriere, and Strawberry Mountain in Kamloops really caught their attention.”
Those alarm bells convinced Logan Lake not only to work at becoming a FireSmart community, but to establish a community forest to give them greater control over what happened in the landscape around the town.
“You can’t just go clear forest if it’s not yours, so they looked at the government process. They were pioneers, and are considered early adopters. A lot of what the FireSmart program is built on came from Logan Lake in the very early days.”
Giles adds that The Test is also a testament to the fact that Logan Lake took on FireSmarting when it wasn’t cool and when fire hadn’t yet threatened their community.
“It went from ‘What are you doing that work for?’ to ‘Aren’t you glad you did this?’ I interviewed well over 50 people in the summer of 2021, and something I asked all of them was ‘What did you think when Lytton burned?’ They said ‘It woke me up.’
“All of us are one ember away from this happening to us.”
Giles knew during the week the town was evacuated that she wanted to do a documentary about the experience and call it The Test, so she began taking notes, paying attention to what people were talking about and saying on social media, and putting together a plan.
“I approached a few people and they said yes, it’s a great story, but we don’t have money for filming. Gold Country Communities Society got us some funding for a day of filming and we got a lot of amazing images of ghost trees, of what had been destroyed, how close it came to town. I had some shots for a teaser trailer and sent it to FireSmart.
“I told them this was what I wanted to do, but said it was going to cost a lot of money, as films are expensive. They said ‘Wow’ and provided a significant amount of funding. They were very excited about it, as it tells story they don’t often get to tell, the human side. They’re thrilled with it.”
The film shows what happened in and around Logan Lake up to July 2021 and the Tremont Creek fire. “Communities evolve. People move in and you have to educate them. It’s never done, and you had some resistance right up until when Lytton burned and they had to close down trails.
“The community forest does a lot of education about what mitigation means. When you mitigate for FireSmart reasons it looks like a park, and takes care of wildlife and water management. You’re not going to clear cut the forest, you’re going to thin out trees and limb them up to 12 feet. It’s constant work.”
Giles says that people were looking to see if the FireSmart work was really worth it. “So much had been put into it and there was so much faith. It’s a testament to those people in 2003, because it takes courage to stick your neck out for something that doesn’t seem important at the time, and to keep it going for that long without subsequent councils stomping it out.”
Much of the documentary relies on “wild” footage and photographs, from cellphone photos and doorbell cams to cellphone videos of the first planes that came in. Giles also notes that some images came from local media: “They cover and preserve local stories.”
She adds that when the Tremont Creek wildfire started it wasn’t on anyone’s radar; other fires such as Lytton Creek and Sparks Lake were making the headlines.
“Tremont Creek travelled more than 50 kilometres. I asked lots of people ‘Did you ever think it would get to Logan Lake?’ And they said no, they though it was more of a problem for Ashcroft.”
Animation shows the progress of the fire, which moved slowly for some time before accelerating toward and around Logan Lake. “It came within 50 feet of one house. We were told it was less than half-an-hour away from devouring the acreages on the northwest side of town, and it came close to the houses near the ski trails.”
Giles gives a huge thanks to FireSmart, which had the right to comment on the documentary but didn’t have control over it.
“The head of FireSmart told me ‘I cried four times’ but said it was good and that they wanted it to be accurate. And I wanted BC Wildfire Service to get behind it. They had a couple of technical points, but were very pleased because I did so much pre-research and didn’t tell a sensational story; I told the story.”
The Test has its first screening at 7 p.m. on Sunday, April 7 at the Paramount Theatre in Kamloops. Tickets can be purchased in advance at www.thekfs.ca, at Kamloops Live Box Office, or through the www.vandelsoproductions.ca website.
Giles will then be taking the film to a FireSmart wildfire resilience and training conference in Prince George at the end of April, after which she has committed to it being 100 per cent available to everyone (no geo-blocking) on YouTube starting in May. FireSmart will also have it on their website (in the “Resources” area) for communities to download and play via a flash drive if they have connectivity issues; go to https://firesmartcanada.ca/.