Lighting Up The Hillsides

My greatest fear growing up was fire. From 1948 to 1960, we experienced nine fires – in our home, on our property, on adjacent property or fires in close proximity and of such intensity as to imperil our home – at least in my youthful eyes. To this day, I seldom retire for the night before first checking the stove, the oven and opening the garage door to sniff for smoke.

 One of the many fires that so traumatized my youth erupted into the nighttime sky on Oct. 28, 1949.  The former S&S garage, renamed the S&M when a new partner Malarsky joined Shandley in the Main Street business, burst into flames.

An excerpt from Growing Up Lillooet

Mom saved our home with a tub
of water and two burlap sacks.

The S&M fire started when an acetylene torch misfired, igniting the gas tank of an under-repair vehicle. Fueled by years of accumulated oil and grease, oil drums and gas cans exploded in spectacular fashion reducing the building to a mass of charred debris within minutes. Flames spread so rapidly that Mr. Shandley didn’t have time to retrieve the $360 in the office cash register.

Lillooet's volunteer fire brigade, realizing it was futile to save the garage, concentrated on saving adjacent buildings. Believing homes on the north side of Main Street and Blanche Vinall’s, behind the garage, would be engulfed, townsfolk quickly marshaled and began removing furniture and personal belongings to backyards and beyond. Others, bolstered by a throng of youngsters from the weekly Recreation Club practice, fanned out downtown, stamping out cinders alighting in backyards, alleys and on rooftops.

At our home on The Heights, we were alerted to the calamity unfolding downtown by the wailing fire siren and flashes of exploding gas and oil drums lighting up the hillsides – literally lighting up the hillsides. A breeze from the southwest, blowing off Seton Lake, had cinders and sparks drifting towards us, many settling on the dry pine needles around our house. Mom, Sandra and I were alone. We had no nearby neighbours, and Dad was away visiting family in Brackendale.

Mom insisted Sandra and I stay inside, where we watched her from our living room window. With the aid of an old laundry tub filled with water and a couple of gunny sacks, she set about defending our home. When sparks burst into flames, she hurried to the spot and swung and smothered the fire into submission with her wet sack before resuming her patrol.

She concentrated on the area closest to and southwest of our house, from time to time returning to the tub to recharge her sacks. Occasionally in the darkness, we caught a glimpse of her rushing between tub and flame as she continued to do battle. Eventually, others moved in to assist. When two Forestry-deployed workers arrived with water-filled backpacks and shovels, our weary mother finally took a break.

Note: The S&M garage was located where the Esso station is today.

This is an excerpt from Terry Thorne’s Growing Up Lillooet; published 2023. All rights reserved.