Fire in Their Hearts

Chapter 4

Prologue

Abner Rourke stepped back to admire the wisp of smoke curling from the bottom of the pile of rags and branches piled high in the blackened pit. The fire pit, four feet deep by six feet wide, a hollow in the earth, reminded him of a bowler hat. He had used it many times to dispose of the trash accumulated from clearing the land and building the wooden structures that the city was composed of.

The early morning sun fell hot against Abner’s neck. He pulled a dirty handkerchief from his pocket to mop the sweat running down his face. It hadn’t rained in four weeks, unusual for Vancouver at this time of year.

A breeze came up. Abner hoped it would help cool him. It carried with it the scent of burning pine needles from the fire, unlike the day a month before when the rains finally ended, and a strong westerly wind had pushed the clouds away from the city and toward the Rocky Mountains that guarded Canada’s youngest province from its Eastern neighbors.

The heat of the day and the smoke from the fire made him dizzy, sending him to the pump at the side of the house to splash cold water on his face and head. The fire burned higher with each passing second. The orange, red, and blue flames danced over the sides of Abner’s pit. The wind blew harder, intensifying the flames, pushing them over the lip of the pit toward Abner’s wood-framed house.

From the wild grasses to the house itself, the fire was a living creature as it gobbled all in its path and turned the wall into a sheet of flame that crackled as the dry wood caught.

Abner, hearing the sounds of the fire closer than he thought possible, raced to the back door where a wall of heat assailed him. He stepped back and ran through the house, shouting a warning to his wife and children, still asleep in their beds. The family fled to safety with only the clothes on their backs. The flames then leapt to the next house, and the next, carried by the wind, which grew in strength as the blaze worked its way across Vancouver. Residents fled for their lives as they raced to stay ahead of the advancing inferno. Vancouver had no fire department in those days. All was lost.