Real Survival Stories - Wrong Side of the Fire: Rangers in Peril…

Episode Date: November 14, 2024

As a wildfire breaks out in Minnesota, a ranger crew is dispatched to clear the forest of members of the public. But unbeknownst to Todd Stefanic and his colleagues, this will rapidly become the largest and fastest-moving blaze in state history. Penned in on all sides, Todd must dodge the flames amidst the woodland’s waterways. But will these lakes and rivers provide a safe haven? Or condemn them to a watery grave? A Noiser production, written by Joe Viner. For ad-free listening, bonus material and early access to new episodes, join Noiser+. Click the Noiser+ banner to get started. Or, if you’re on Spotify or Android, go to noiser.com/subscriptions If you have an amazing survival story of your own that you’d like to put forward for the show, let us know. Drop us an email at [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

TD Direct Investing offers live support, so whether you're a newbie or a seasoned pro, you can make your investing steps count. And if you're like me and think a TFSA stands for Total Fund Savings Adventure, maybe reach out to TD Direct Investing. It's mid-afternoon, Saturday, September 10, 2011. Todd Stefanik and Chris Kinney trudge down a hiking trail in northern Minnesota. The two men are wilderness rangers here in the Superior National Forest, a three-million-acre expanse of dense woodland, pristine lakes, and cold-water streams. As they pick their way along the trail, Todd and Chris keep an eye out for members of the public. All day, the rangers have been patrolling the forest,

warning campers and hikers about a wildfire burning nearby. With the wind pushing the flames from west to east, the rangers are advising the public to move north, out of harm's way. Todd glances up above the treeline. Off in the distance to the west, a thick column of dark grey smoke spirals up into the sky. According to the latest reports, the fire is still four days away from reaching this part of the forest. Even so, Todd watches the column closely as they walk.

As long as they can still see it, they can monitor its movement. But as they continue up the trail, conditions suddenly shift. The color just changed to this yellow, smoky, like a column had laid over a little bit. So it wasn't going straight up anymore. It was actually affecting us. Smoke coming through the trees. It happens in a flash. The sky turns the color of copper and the air becomes coarse and scratchy to breathe. With a sinking feeling, Todd squints up beyond the tops of the pines. The reports were wrong. The fire is right on top of them. And then the wind changes direction.

All day it's been blowing from west to east, pushing the fire along with it. Now, abruptly, it switches. With gusts ripping from east to west, back towards the fire. I knew what that meant. That is the fire sucking in oxygen. It's an in-draft, and that means you're too damn close to the fire. And not just too damn close, we were on the wrong side of the fire. Ever wondered what you would do when disaster strikes?

If your life depended on your next decision, could you make the right choice? Welcome to Real Survival Stories. These are the astonishing tales of ordinary people thrown into extraordinary situations. People suddenly forced to fight for their lives. In this episode, we meet 42-year-old wilderness ranger Todd Stefanik. In September 2011, as a wildfire breaks out in the Superior National Forest, Todd is part of a public safety crew tasked with clearing the area of members of the public. But unbeknownst to Todd and his colleagues, what starts off as an ordinary wildfire will rapidly become the largest and fastest moving blaze in state history. That was the moment that it was like, oh, it is that bad.

This isn't just us, and we're not overreacting. in state history. That was the moment that it was like, oh, it is that bad. This is just us, and we're not overreacting. It really is that bad. With flames closing in on all sides, Todd and his fellow rangers will have no choice but to seek refuge in one of the forest's many lakes. But will this provide a safe haven or condemn them to a watery grave?

You can duck under the water all you want. Eventually, you've got to come up and take a breath. And then you're going to be breathing in superheated gases that will dry your lungs. And that's game over. I'm John Hopkins from Noisa. This is Real Survival Stories. hours. It's late summer 2011 in Cook, Minnesota. Inside La Croix District Ranger Office, Todd Stefanik sits at his desk, typing up a report on the environmental impact of logging in the area.

Todd takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes. He's been staring at his computer screen for hours. Through the open window, he can hear the comings and goings of the car dealership next door. He yawns and reaches for his rapidly cooling coffee. Todd has been stationed here in Cook for six years, working as part of a team of rangers to protect and maintain the Superior National Forest on the US-Canadian border. Devoting his career to environmental stewardship felt like an obvious choice. Growing up in rural Wisconsin, he developed a deep and lasting connection to the natural

world. My love of the outdoors started when I was a kid. We did a lot of canoeing. There's a lot of canoeing opportunities in Wisconsin, a lot of rivers, a lot of fishing. That was my cup of tea. That's what I like to be doing in my free time. And so I thought, hey, I should make a career out of this. I did not want to end up in a career where I sat in an eight by8 cubicle and stared at a computer. After finishing college, Todd left Wisconsin and headed west, taking jobs on wildlife refuges in Colorado and California. I love to be in the mountains, just hiking and fishing and

maybe walking the dogs, whatever it is. There's something good for the soul to have mountains in your backyard. Six years ago, he and his wife decided to start a family. So they left California and moved back to the Midwest to be closer to Todd's parents. Todd took up his current posting as a district ranger for the Superior National Forest in Cook, Minnesota, where there are more dollar stores than mountains. He missed the California scenery, but he soon got used to the flat landscape of this part of the world, the pine trees, the lakes. He got used to the mosquitoes in the summer and to shoveling snow in the winter. Some things, however, Todd can't get used to,

like the increasingly desk-bound nature of his job. I had gone back to Minnesota because of the proximity to family, but I found myself for the first time in my career doing what I didn't want to do. I was sitting in an 8x8 cubicle writing NEPA documents for logging, essentially. So I would write these expansive documents about the adverse effects of what we're going to do. It wasn't about doing good things for the environment anymore. It was just they have a legal requirement to disclose the adverse effects of what we're going to do. So it was not the most enjoyable time in my career.

This is what he swore would never happen, spending his nine to five chained to a desk. Then one day in early September, Todd's district supervisor calls him and his partner, Chris Kinney into his office. The supervisor explains that they're putting together a team of rangers to head out into the Boundary Waters canoe area, a stretch of wilderness within the Superior National Forest popular with tourists. The team's job is to clear the trails, lakes, and campsites of members of the public amid warnings of an advancing wildfire.

Todd has heard reports of this blaze, dubbed the Pagami Creek Wildfire. It was sparked by a lightning strike a couple of weeks ago and has been burning ever since, fueled by the hot, windy conditions and the countless acres of dry, brittle brush. Attempts to contain the blaze have been unsuccessful, hence the need to organize a public safety team.

That's kind of why you jumped at opportunities to get back in the field. And that's kind of how I found myself as a public safety crew member on this fire, because they were calling for volunteers. And I was like, please get me away from this desk. I'll go out on an eight-day stint into the wilderness. Hell yeah. A few days later, on the morning of Saturday, September the 10th, Todd and Chris are driving to the Eastern Ranger District office in the town of Ely. There, they will link up with the rest of their team before setting out on their eight-day mission. Todd rolls down the window and breathes the fresh, pine-scented air. Even with the high winds, the fire is still several days west of their location. They probably won't even see it. On the back seat of the truck are backpacks loaded with gear and provisions,

everything they will need for eight days of honest work outdoors. Far, far away from their desks. Todd smiles. This is more like it. with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts, offering host endorsements, or run a pre-produced ad like this one across thousands of shows to reach your target audience with Libsyn Ads. Email bob at libsyn.com to learn more. That's B-O-B at L-I-B-S-Y-N dot com. Todd and Chris load equipment into their canoe.

Beside them, the lake glints in the mid-morning sun. Pine, fir, and spruce trees crowd the banks. Flashes of autumnal red and orange appear among the evergreens. The changing leaves are a reminder that, despite the unseasonal warmth, fall is approaching after a long hot summer. As Chris and Todd climb into the canoe and push off, spirits are high. We thought we were just going for a fun eight-day wilderness trip because that's what we were told to prepare for, eight days. So we got, you know, supplies and

camping and food for eight days in our canoe so this was going to be fun this is going to be a chance to see a part of the superior national forest i've never been in the boundary waters canoe area is a 1.1 million acre network of lakes rivers and forest trails some of the region's thousands of lakes are connected by streams. Others are divided by land and canoeists must portage the gap, that is, carry their canoe between the water. As part of the public safety crew, Todd and Chris have teamed up with six other rangers from various forest districts.

The team has been split into pairs, each given a different assignment. Todd and Chris are tasked with paddling across an area of three lakes, simply called Lakes 1, 2, and 3, then leaving their canoe to hike south along the Powwow Trail, advising any members of the public they meet to head north. It may seem a simple plan, but there are some red flags. Todd and Chris are being asked to cover a distance of 11 miles in less than a day. Meanwhile, the fire will be approaching from the west, potentially cutting off their route back to camp. Though Todd holds a Forest Service red card, proof of his basic wildfire training, neither he, Chris, nor anyone on the public safety crew is equipped to actively fight this blaze.

But whatever, we're supposed to be so far ahead of the fire, it's irrelevant. Worst case scenario, we're four days away from the fire hitting Lake 3 anyway. So like, whatever, I'm just out here to go paddle in the wilderness and get some OT, right? Don't think much of it. Todd and Chris paddle all morning. Occasionally they see members of the public in lakeside campsites. Elderly couples, families with kids,

ordinary folk out enjoying the last warm days of summer. Todd and Chris call out from their canoe, advising them to pack up and make their way north. They reassure the public, repeating information provided by their supervisors, that the fire is still some distance away to the west, that this is just a precaution. At one stage, Todd and Chris come ashore to portage between lakes one and two.

As they're carrying their canoe through the trees, they become aware of some commotion further along the trail. Moments later, a team of fully kitted-out firefighters jog past them. They're using hoses to douse the undergrowth in an attempt to prevent the spread of the blaze. Todd and Chris watch on with growing unease. The firefighters' protective clothing and equipment contrasts starkly with their own simple canvas ranger's uniforms, let alone members of the public in casual holiday wear. Something doesn't seem right.

I'm like, what in the hell is this? They're in full nomax wetting this portage down, you know, ready with tools and they know how to cope with the fire while other just members of the public canoe in with grandma in shorts and flip flops. So more red flags are going off. Just how serious is this situation? The presence of these firefighters hints that the danger may be more immediate than they've been led to believe. Still, they press on, following the orders they've been given. Several hours later, Todd and Chris leave their canoe on the banks of Lake Three.

They shoulder their packs and set off on foot down the powwow trail. The rangers only encounter a couple of hikers along the way, but they keep going, checking their watches periodically as they venture further south. Eventually they decide they've gone far enough. It's mid-afternoon. They need to leave themselves enough time to safely reach their designated campsite Eventually, they decide they've gone far enough. It's mid-afternoon.

They need to leave themselves enough time to safely reach their designated campsite on the shore of Lake Three. They turn around and retrace their steps back up the trail. Several miles away to the west, a huge column of smoke is visible above the treeline. Todd keeps an eye on it. As long as they can still see this colossal plume of ash, they can track the fire's progress. But as the afternoon wears on, conditions change around them. A sepia haze tinges the sky. The breeze picks up, carrying with it a distinctive smell of wood smoke and burning leaves when todd looks up

he can no longer see the smoke column and then it took 30 seconds maybe where it stopped blowing and it was dead calm and then it started back up again but the wind was going in the opposite direction from east to west and having some experience with fire in my earlier days, I knew what that meant. That is the fire sucking in oxygen. It's an in-draft. And that means you're too damn close to the fire. And not just too damn close. We were on the wrong side of the fire.

Todd and Chris pick up the pace. Each stride injected with new urgency. They decide to radio across to the IC, the Incident Command Station, to ask for an update on the location and status of the fire. No dice. They're too far south, out of range of the IC repeater. With no other option, Todd switches to the Fernberg repeater, the main radio tower designated for firefighting crews.

This time, he does get through, but he doesn't receive the guidance he's looking for. Instead of them being useful and helpful in giving us an update on the fire, they told us to get off the Fernberg repeater, which I just couldn't understand for the life of me. I was incensed. I tried to take the radio away from my partner and read him the right act. He wouldn't let me have the radio. But I've had some early years in fire, and you don't do that. You don't abandon your folks in the field. Emergencies like this require cooperation and communication.

Right now, they're receiving neither. Still, Todd can't afford to lose his cool. He must remain calm and focused. The fire is closing in fast now, gaining ground. So from that point on back to where we were double timing it and even, you know, running at times, running and then maybe slow down, catch your breath and run some more. And until we got back to Lake 3 and met up with the other team that had gone in the other direction down the Pow Wow Trail and they brought more bad news apparently there are tourists camped on the shore of horseshoe lake a couple of kilometers east of their current location right in the path of the advancing fire as one of the strongest paddlers in the team todd and another ranger tom rush over to horseshoe lake where they canoe out

to the campus who are oblivious to the impending danger me Me and Tom basically paddled out around to where these campers were and they were in no big hurry. And I told them, I said, we got to go, the fire is coming. And the woman, she says, yeah, we're just packing up and I'm going to filter water

and then we'll go. And that's when the pleasant ranger disappeared and I said, no, you don't understand. You grab your stuff, get in your canoe, you're following us now. For the rest of the afternoon, Todd and his fellow rangers

patrolled the lake and surrounding trails. By sundown, they returned to the north shore of Lake Free. With a body of water separating them from the fire, this should be a safe place to camp. They set up their tents and hunker down for the night, exhausted after a long, difficult day. As Todd lies in his sleeping bag, the wind whistling through the trees,

he broods on the day's events. A combination of flawed planning and poor communication left them vulnerable out there in the forest, cut off from radio contact with incident command. Fortunately, nobody was hurt. But this fire appears to be developing at a far greater rate than they had been led to believe. And if today's events are anything to go by, there are surely more difficult days ahead. This wasn't a one-day-oh-everything-hit-the-fan event. This thing was just a recipe for disaster from day one.

It's Monday morning. Todd and Chris paddle east in their canoe. Weak sunlight trickles down through the sooty yellow haze. It's the start of Todd's third day in the forest. Yesterday, he and his fellow rangers continued patrolling the lakes and trails, successfully evacuating over 80 people from harm's way. But with the wind continuously switching direction and changing speed, monitoring the progress of the fire has been extremely difficult.

Sometimes we have to visit people two and three times, and they're like, where do you want us to go? You've moved us from there to this they're like, where do you want us to go? You've moved us from there to this side of the lake, now you want us to go to the other lake? Now the incident command has relayed a new directive. The plan has changed. Instead of merely relocating the public, they are now enforcing hard closures,

instructing everyone to leave the forest and head back to their vehicles. Right now, Todd and Chris are paddling to Lake Insula, one of the largest lakes in the area, where they will join fellow rangers Nancy and Andrea. Together the team will work to clear the lake, making sure it's fully evacuated and closed off to the public. According to new reports, the fire is a couple of days away, burning steadily to the west. Soon, Todd and Chris reach a narrow spit of land separating Hudson Lake from Lake Insula. They see Nancy and Andrea's canoe on the bank.

They must have set off to investigate the area on foot. Todd and Chris begin down the trail, carrying their canoe over their heads. After a short walk, they reach the shore of Lake Insula, where Nancy and Andrea are waiting for them. They stop to discuss next steps. And that is when things start to really go south. Because as we're standing there talking, the sky gets yellow at first, then orange, and starts to darken.

And then I hear it. I hear the fire. And I said, we shouldn't be hearing the fire. We should be days ahead of the fire. This is not good. A sense of disbelief breaks out among the rangers. Could that really be the fire they're hearing? It's supposed to be days away. But Todd trusts his gut. And I'm like, no, guys, I know what the fire sounds like. That's the fire.

And I made some smart-ass comment like, do you think the forest just got a new waterfall? That is the fire sounds like. That's the fire. And I made some smart-ass comment like, do you think the forest just got a new waterfall? That is the fire. You two need to return across the portage and get your canoe, and we need to get the heck out of here. Eventually, Todd gets his message across, and they quickly formulate a plan. While Nancy and Andrea fetch their canoe, Chris

will head to a patch of elevated ground to try and get some radio signal. They need an update on the fire's location. Todd, meanwhile, will sit tight and wait with their canoe. The other three run off, leaving Todd alone surveying their surroundings. He can spot a potential problem. To reach open water from this bank, they will first need to navigate a long, narrow channel. If the fire catches up with them while they're still paddling down this stretch of water, they won't stand a chance. You can duck under the water all you want.

Eventually, you've got to come up and take a breath, and then you're going to be breathing in superheated gases and it will dry your lungs and that's game over. So I'm sitting there waiting and it's taking forever. The longest moments of my life felt like hours. Thick smog blots out the sun, casting an eerie twilight over the area. The stiff, easterly wind carries the sharp smell of burning leaves and scorched timber. Todd taps his foot and peers down the trail. Where are they? Conditions got bad. The fire was loud and getting louder.

Orange, dark, smoky. And eventually, after those longest minutes of my life, they returned and we got in and we pushed the heck off and started paddling for our lives. Todd, Chris, Andrea, and Nancy push off from the shore, gliding swiftly through the narrow channel. In the space of just a few moments, the situation has gone from code orange to code red. Their focus has shifted now, from protecting the public to saving themselves.

With the fire closing in, Todd and the others paddle frantically, racing through the narrow waterway toward the relative safety of the open lake. Over their shoulders, flames hungrily devour the dense brush that lines the banks. The heat sears the backs of the rangers as they struggle forward. We have quite a ways to go through this narrow channel before it gets to anything that I would consider survivable. It's several hundred yards until we can sort of turn right, turn east into the more larger part of Lake Insula, which we thought is where we were going to be safe. The muscles in Todd's arms burn as he paddles aggressively. It feels like any moment the fire may swallow them in this claustrophobic alleyway of water.

Eventually, blistered and breathless, they sail through the mouth of the channel and into the open water of the lake. But as they leave the shelter of the trees behind, the wind intensifies. Unfortunately, we hit that larger open water and realized we can't hardly even control our canoes. We're facing 40, 50 mile an hour wire generated winds. Waves crash across the bows of their canoes like they've just landed in the middle of the Pacific. Just keeping their vessels straight is becoming a back-breaking challenge. Todd glances over his right shoulder. The southern edge of the lake is engulfed in fire, a solid wall of heat and smoke.

Burning embers streak through the air like tracer bullets. Flames, fueled by the fierce wind, leap effortlessly from one island to the next, jumping water channels with alarming speed. The south shore of Insula now is just orange, and we're getting pelted with firebrands. Like, here I'm clicking off my helmet. I can hear them hitting alongside the boat or in the boat, which has been taking water over the bow.

Smoke pours across the lake, making it increasingly difficult to see. Suddenly, Chris's radio crackles. It's another pair of rangers from the public safety team, Naomi and Nancy, a second Nancy. They've been patrolling the southern portion of Lake Insula all morning, and now, like Todd and the others, they're trying to reach the middle of the lake, fighting against the wind and the waves. Todd scours the opaque smoke, trying to get eyes on Naomi and Nancy. This situation is rapidly spiraling out of control.

It'll all be safer if they stick together. And at one point, the light, the smoke lifted, and we could see across the lake to the east, and we saw a canoe and the yellow shirt of one of them. So, okay, we know where they are. And then it went black again we lost them and we heard on the radio that they've got their boots off and they're going in the lake the lake is supposed to be a safe haven it's one of the first lessons you learn during wildfire training here in the superior national forest that no matter how bad the situation gets on land, you can always reach safety by paddling to the center of the lake. But this fire is torturing the rulebook. Its unprecedented size and speed have rendered

every strategy, every procedure redundant. That was probably the peak of my fear for my life because i'm like that was the moment that it was like oh it is that bad this is just us and we're not overreacting it really is that bad todd and chris struggle on trying to stick close to Andrea and Nancy, but the thick smoke makes navigating near impossible. At this point it got black. And I mean black. This isn't like we went outside at one in the morning. I mean nothing.

I never experienced black like this before. I reached around, get in my pack and get my headlamp, and realized I can't see Chris in the back of my canoe. That's how black it is. Tears stream from his eyes as he squints into the darkness. Nancy and Andrea know these lakes better than Todd and Chris do. They need to stick with them. But through all this acrid smog, Todd can barely see his own hand in front of his face. And then, up ahead in the distance, he spots a tiny, dim light. Andrea's head torch. Andrea became my hero because she had a brilliant

idea. She took her headlamp and she spun it around to face backwards. And that gave us this little dot of white in the distance. They'll follow and then we just started paddling for all we were worth towards that dot.

Todd and Chris heave their way to Nancy and Andrea's canoe. As they pull up alongside them, a sudden gap in the smoke reveals an island a short distance away. It's a small, rocky outcrop with very little vegetation for the fire to feed on. Over the roar of the wind and the flames, the four rangers confer. Should they continue trying to evade the fire on the lake or try their luck on the island? Trying to outrun this thing isn't happening.

So making a stand on an island seemed, I mean, you can't say unanimous because we couldn't hardly talk to each other over the noise of the fire, but it was a consensus, I guess. Nobody was like, oh, we should get in the canoes and keep going. It was like, this is as good as it's going to get. The island seems like the lesser of the two evils, and so the four rangers paddle towards it and drag their canoes onto the shingle beach. It turns out conditions are no better here than on the water.

The air is thick with swirling embers, whipping around like a fiery blizzard. The wind howls with such force that staying on their feet is nearly impossible. But at least they can stick together here. The rangers drop to their knees and cover their mouths with their hands, their voices barely carrying above the gale. They have now reached a critical juncture. One piece of mandatory equipment that all the Rangers are carrying is a fire shelter. A tent-like structure made of aluminium foil designed to withstand temperatures of 2,000

degrees Fahrenheit for up to a minute. For Todd and his fellow rangers choosing when to deploy their fire shelters is a delicate matter there used to be a stigma associated with deploying fire shelter especially if it turned out you didn't need to and they're trying to get they have been for years decades probably trying to get away from there being that stigma and just view it as a tool. It's another tool. And why the hell wouldn't you use every tool in your arsenal? Still, the other rangers don't look convinced. There is indeed a stigma surrounding the deployment of fire shelters. It's seen as a last resort, and deploying too early indicates poor judgment and overreaction even negligence

but todd is insistent and i looked around at everybody's and i said wait a minute guys this is where we've decided to make our stand right we're all on our knees right now why because it's hard to stand this wind will knock you over do you want to wait until the winds are 80 miles an hour to try to get in these things and then there's like a consensus nodding heads looking at me going yeah that's pretty smart we should maybe get in these things as the spare brush on the island burns the air heats up around them soon breathing will become deadly as their scorched windpipes begin to blister and swell. The rangers erect their fire shelters and crawl in.

The relief is instantaneous. The protection from the fumes and the superheated air allows Todd to breathe and calm his nerves. From inside his aluminium-foiled cocoon, you can hear Chris sending out an emergency radio message. Chris is the one person who had an extended antenna. The rest of us just had regular antennas on our radios. But he thought, well, he'll send out one message here, just in case. He sent a message to the effect that this is who we are. We're public safety crew and we are on Lake Insula and we have deployed fire shelters.

It's 45 minutes later. Todd lies flat on the ground. Occasionally he calls out words of encouragement to the other rangers. Their voices drift back, muffled and distorted, but resolute. Gradually, the roar of the inferno fades. With no more fuel to feed upon, the flames dwindle and die. Tentatively, Todd lifts the flap and peers outside. The air is still thick with smoky haze, but through the fog, Todd can make out the scorched remains of the forest, the towering pines reduced to splintered, blackened stumps. After emerging from their shelters, conversation immediately turns to Nancy and Naomi, the two rangers who abandoned their canoe in the lake.

Chris really wanted to jump in a canoe and go look for Nancy and Naomi. And I was like holding this shirt back saying, no, no, no. Look at these white caps. It's still not safe. And I didn't voice it. I didn't want to voice it. But really, my argument was chris you're not looking for our friends this is a body recovery operation at this point you'd go out there and risk another life though he isn't explicit todd manages to get his point across it's still too windy to risk paddling back out onto the lake

the water is still too wild. They need to wait for conditions to calm down. In the meantime, they start shouting from the island, calling out their colleagues' names. Their voices echo across the water, swallowed by the gales. There is a stomach-twisting silence. Before. Lo and behold, we heard yells back, so we knew somebody's alive. As soon as it's safe, they paddle out and bring Nancy and Naomi back to the island.

The exhausted, bedraggled pair recount their harrowing ordeal. After bailing from their canoe, the two rangers attempted to escape the intense heat by treading water in their life jackets. They even deployed their fire shelters in the lake, a desperate, unprecedented move. But the wind kept blowing the aluminium foil lining across their mouths threatening to suffocate them this combined with the discomfort of being submerged in cold water forced them into another bold decision they swam for sure deciding to take their chances on a narrow spit of rocks with trees surrounding the rocks the outcome could have been disastrous were it not for an extraordinary stroke of luck one of the most shocking miraculous things from this whole incident is that if you look at a

map of the burn scar after the fire there is no green on that map save for 10 or 20 trees right next to that spit of rocks where they etched up. For some reason, that little piece, it didn't burn to the water's edge. I'll never know why, but that's where they landed, and that's why they survived. It's about an hour later. Todd sits in his canoe, paddling across the south shore of Lake Insula. He and Chris are on their way back to gather up some of the gear abandoned by Nancy and Naomi. The forest is entirely silent.

Normally this place is alive with birdsong, but not today. As their canoe glides over the now calm water, Todd and Chris come across a macabre spectacle. When we went to try to recover gear, I remember seeing the dead birds lapping up against the shore, the birds that couldn't escape. That's how fast the fire was going. Chris and Naomi both recount, just before it got super dark, they both recount seeing bats in the sky. So the bats too were trying to escape when the heat and smoke got too much. All the trees along the shore, when we were trying to pick up gear, they're all laid flat, pointing east. So the fire burned them up and the winds just knocked them all over.

So every tree in the forest was pointing east. It was kind of surreal. Todd and Chris float through this apocalyptic terrain. After recovering the gear, they return to their island where they and the four other rangers set up camp for the night. By now, the public safety team has managed to make contact with their supervisor, who has offered to dispatch a float plane to pick them up and bring them back to civilization. But the rangers refused.

They should use the plane to scour the forest for stranded civilians. They'll manage for one more night. As evening falls, the group uses the few scraps of unburnt foliage to light a campfire. Todd reaches into his backpack and pulls out a bottle of rum. He had intended the booze to last them the full eight days. But by the time the campfire is burnt out several hours later, the bottle's empty. I think it was therapeutic. We sat around the fire. Nobody really wanted to go to sleep. We're running on pure adrenaline still, right? And we just talked, went through all the course of events

that had happened since we'd put in that day. And then it just turned into a laughing, joking session around the fire until people were tired enough to crawl in tents. It's the following morning. Todd and his five fellow rangers stand on the shoreline, watching the float planes skim across the surface of the lake. Todd pushes his spectacles up to the bridge of his nose.

After the chaos of the past few days, he has plenty of choice words for the people in charge of this wildfire response. However, when they reach the district office, the tone struck by those in charge is anything but apologetic. We were picked up by the float plane and flown back to Ely, the hangar there at Ely, where we were then put up upstairs above the hangar for sort of a debriefing, and unfortunately, a debriefing and a finger-pointing session. The people in charge blame us for doing something wrong instead of like, you know, hey, does anybody need to go get looked at at the clinic? How are you feeling? How's your breathing?

Anybody have any injuries? No, it was more of a, we really effed up and we're worried the hammer's going to come down on us. So, yeah, it was kind of ugly. This all sets the tone for the official incident report, which will, in Todd's view, omit several key details about how this response was managed from the start. Despite that, Todd doesn't want to apportion blame. When dealing with a wildfire

of unparalleled proportions, it's inevitable that mistakes will occur. This was an unprecedented fire event. It was the biggest, fastest moving fire in recorded Minnesota history. Okay, so it went from 11,000 acres at around noon that day to 89,000 acres by that afternoon. I can tell you that everybody in a position of management was gone within three months. There was a little bit of fallout, but it was mostly move people around. Still, there are some silver linings. Following the Pagami Creek wildfire, various insights from Todd and the other rangers' experiences

were used to shape a new and improved wildfire response protocol. They don't operate public safety as this special different unit anymore that reports to somebody back in the office. They now are part of the fire organization and report to whoever, you know, the section chief of whatever section of the fire they're in. Those are all good things that they learned from this incident. As for Todd, he didn't stick around in the forest service for much longer. In fact, on the very same day that they were picked up and flown out from Lake Insula, he returned to his desk to find an answer phone message waiting for him. When I got back to my office later that day, evening, still sooty and in my fire clothes,

there was a message on my phone requesting an interview for this place, Craters of the Moon. And I applied for a lot of places out west. I literally was going, Craters of the what? What did I apply for? And I called the guy back. Can I have a weekend or a few days before we schedule an interview? Because I don't know if I told him or not, but I was like, I'm not ready to talk about anything.

Just went through something pretty traumatic. But following week, I had that interview and I took the job. Like, get me the hell out of here within a few weeks todd and his family had left minnesota and moved back out west these days he's a wildlife biologist at the craters of the moon national monument and preserve in idaho he still spends some time sitting behind a desk but at least when he looks through his office window now, he can see mountains. I live a mile away from a gorgeous mountain range, the Lost River Range. The highest peak in Idaho is on that range.

I can see King Mountain, which is 10,600 foot, you know, right out my back window. This place is pretty special. Next time on Real Survival Stories, we meet elite fighter pilot captain Brian Udell. The 31-year-old is an aeronautical expert at the top of his game. But during a high-speed training exercise over the Atlantic Ocean, Brian's F-15 fighter jet suffers a major malfunction, and he is forced to eject while traveling at 800 miles an hour, faster than the speed of sound.

It's never been done before, for very good reason. Here we are at 700, roughly 780 knots, supersonic. All of this equipment is only tested up to 600 knots because they don't feel that you're going to survive past that, physically survive. What happens when you eject supersonic? I felt like I'd been hit by a freight train. That's next time on Real Survival Stories. Listen today without waiting a week by subscribing to Noisa Plus.