18-Year-old Uses Her Tracking Skills to Guide Hikers on Wildfire Evacuation Route
Out from the ash and flames of the wildfires that scorched Canada’s Jasper National Park comes the story of a heroic 18-year-old who saved over a dozen people.
Working as a volunteer firefighter and kitchen aide at a lodge, Colleen Knull received an evacuation order on a Monday in late July. Stepping outside she saw smoke rising up the mountainsides, and knew that there were people still camping in the area.
Alerting everyone at the lodge, she went out to gather the campers until 16 people were ready to evacuate. Darkness was falling, and getting out of the area meant a 4-hour hike across treacherous terrain.
Knull used her knowledge of the area and tracking skills to help navigate the 16 people down the trail. The group used head torches and phone flashlights to see in the darkness.
“I had previously rode up a horse up to that lodge on that same trail and throughout the way me and my employer, we had cut logs on the way up,” Knull told CTV News. “There were 67 logs, so there would be be 67 cut logs on the way down … So I used my tracking skills – following horse tracks, horse manure.”
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“There was more intense smoke, my eyes were burning, there was ash falling constantly,” said Rebecca Tocher, a hiker who was in Knull’s group. “She was an amazing leader and was just making sure that everyone was working together.”
Incredibly, all 16 hikers made it out ahead of the fires and successfully evacuated in the back of Knull’s pickup truck.
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The experience, Knull recounted, just reinforced her desire to become a full-time professional firefighter.
WATCH the story below from CTV News…
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