N.W.T. man recounts nightmarish escape from wildfire — and how a Hay River man saved his life

A Fort Smith, N.W.T., man is recounting his terrifying effort to flee a wildfire with his wife a couple of weeks ago — and crediting a Hay River man for saving their lives.

Franco Nogarin recounted to CBC News their nightmarish flight from Hay River when that community — along with neighbouring Kátł’odeeche First Nation and Enterprise — was abruptly ordered to evacuate on Aug. 13, as a wildfire tore through the forest nearby.

Nogarin had fled Fort Smith with his wife Heidi Selzler and two cats less than a day before. In Hay River, they stayed at his brother Dario’s property on Vale Island. When the evacuation order came, they all drove out together.

As residents lined up at gas stations and the first convoy of vehicles began to depart south, an ominous orange hue filled the sky.

Nogarin and Selzler left Hay River at 6:30 p.m. that night with Dario driving behind them. They didn’t know it, but Fire SS-052 had started consuming Highway 2 between Hay River and Enterprise —right where they were headed.

The road was still listed as open then, and there was no warning or indication of the terror that lay ahead.

From bad to worse

Nogarin was driving a Ford F150 with a camper trailer attached — a long affair that wouldn’t be easy to turn around on the narrow, sharp-shouldered highway.

They passed the golf course, and Nogarin said he started noticing the way the wind was moving the smoke. As a wildfire behaviour expert, he and Selzler — an experienced wildfire videographer — knew what they were seeing was not good news.

“Things started to look really scary,” Nogarin recalled. “We looked at each other and could see the worry in each other’s eyes, and we went into emergency-crisis mode.”

On they went, past Paradise Gardens, and that feeling of foreboding got worse. The sky ahead of them glowed orange. Nogarin thought it was sunlight obscured by smoke.

But minutes later, just down the road, it became clear — the orange glow was from a massive wildfire, raging toward them.

Brought up short by headlights

As they rounded a bend, looking for somewhere to turn around, some headlights hit them. Ahead of them, on the road, stood an elderly man, frantically trying to get the driver ahead of them to turn around.

The man on the road was Ray Shields of Hay River. His vehicle was already turned and waiting nearby in case he needed to make a quick escape. The wildfire was approaching, he told the other drivers — it was time to flee.

Then the fire blazed into view.

“[The fire], kind of like a cartoon, was whipped around the corner, and … it was a violent thing,” Nogarin said.

As Nogarin and Selzler looked on in horror, a dark pickup truck barrelled past them in the other lane and disappeared toward the inferno. The group didn’t even have time to warn them.

Nogarin believed he was watching someone drive to their death, though N.W.T. government officials later said they weren’t aware of any casualties from that night.

Shields was then at Nogarin’s window, urging him to turn around immediately. Nogarin told Shields he should get out of there too.

“He insisted he needed to warn people … Heidi sort of screamed at him, that he needed to get back in his truck and go, or he would die,” Nogarin said.

“I saw the smoke start to spin — it was a red flag for me and a premonition as to what would come next,” he said. “I screamed at my brother on the phone to turn around and get out as fast as he could.”

As they drove down into the ditch in a desperate attempt to turn, the world around them turned deep brown.

“I could not even see the hood of my truck. In my mind, I knew we were either dead, or we were going to be on fire soon,” Nogarin recalled.

Debris began pelting down on their vehicle like a hail storm, wind blasting the camper nearly to the tipping point. He floored the gas pedal and cranked the wheel toward the road until he could feel the tires gain traction.

“I could feel the left side of the truck tilting up and I knew I was climbing the ditch,” he said. “At that moment, my left arm out the window, I felt my skin starting to burn.”

Pointed back toward Hay River, they raced into the darkness. Behind them the fire flared into the treetops and they watched in horror as a tornado of flames whipped up and raced after them.

“Fire 52 was trying to eat us all,” Nogarin recalled.

Flames shoot up from behind trees near Hay River, N.W.T.

A wildfire near the town of Hay River, N.W.T., is keeping firefighting crews busy, as shown in this video clip shot Sunday night by a firefighter on scene.

Reaching safety

Then, just as suddenly as it appeared, the smoke in front of them started to clear. They could see again, and right beside them was a white pickup truck driven by Ray Shields. He had taken their advice and also fled the advancing fire.

Shields passed them as Nogarin slowed, still on the phone with his brother.

“I told my brother to go to our families just outside of Delancey [Estates],” he said. “Make them go to the beach now and not take no for an answer because this fire was gonna destroy everything in its path.”

Trail’s End: Franco Nogarin on the heroic efforts of Fort Smith’s Ray Shields 

The evacuation of Hay River due to Fire 52 was a terrifying one, leaving burnt out cars on the sides of the highway. But Franco Nogarin says it could have been far worse if it weren’t for the efforts of Ray Shields, who he’s calling a hero. Here’s their story.

Then he turned his attention to the convoy of residents fleeing Hay River, who had no idea what awaited them ahead on the highway. Feeling helpless, emotional and shaking, he and Selzler looked at the line of vehicles headed toward the fire, not knowing what to do.

Ahead of them, Shields didn’t hesitate, though. He pulled over and started trying to get people to turn around using the nearby rest stop.

‘Don’t know what I was thinking’

For Shields, that night is something of a blur.

Speaking to CBC’s Marc Winkler, Shields said he realized it was no longer safe to drive the highway when winds hit 50 kilometres an hour.

“That flame was just flying, right from the bottom of the trees to the top. And then — oh, it was bad. It was bad,” he said. “You did not go ahead with that. You had to stop.”

He didn’t plan to get out of his vehicle and start flagging down drivers to warn them of what was ahead. He just did it.

“It’s just one of those things … I’m not gonna stand there and watch someone get hurt if there’s something I could do to help them,” he said.

The inferno burned the hair off his hands, and burned the back of his neck before he decided to get out of there.

That second stop, turning people around at the rest stop, wasn’t exactly planned either.

“Don’t know what I was thinking,” he said. “Just [had to do] something, and I thought that was right — get these people turned around, go the other way.”

‘I could barely speak the rest of the night’

Watching the line of cars leaving Hay River, Selzler suggested Nogarin lay on the horn the whole way back, so he did. Head out the window, they motioned and mouthed for everyone they passed to turn around.

In the rearview mirror, they started to see a steady stream of vehicles joining their newly-formed convoy heading back north.

They drove in shock the rest of the way. They arrived at the beach, hoping it would provide some safety.

“I could barely speak the rest of the night. And the beach sunset was so beautiful, you could almost forget about what was raging [toward us].”

It took days for the adrenaline crash to end and for Nogarin’s hands to stop shaking. Nogarin, Selzler and others camped for days at the beach, with the fire inching closer every day.

By the following Tuesday, they got word that the other wildfire threatening their home community of Fort Smith had passed Salt River and had been making its way to Fort Smith when a rainstorm hit and helped slow the fire progression.

“Raining! At the very last minute, another miracle,” Nogarin said.

That rain — and some hail — hit Hay River, too.

“I was standing there in my clothes outside, watching the sky, and as the rain came down my face, so did more tears — but tears of joy,” he said.

Eventually, they left the community and joined other evacuees down south — both changed by what they had experienced: the wildfire that nearly consumed them, and the heroic efforts of Shields.

“We barely escaped within millimetres of our lives, Nogarin said. “But we were alive, because of Ray.”