‘The Test’: New documentary on Logan Lake’s Tremont Creek Wildfire experience to premiere

LOGAN LAKE, B.C. — In August of 2021, the entire community of Logan Lake was evacuated, as the Tremont Creek Wildfire burned through the area, threatening the town. At some points it was uncertain what the fate of the area would be. But thanks to firefighting efforts, and years of FireSmart preparations, Logan Lake was saved.

It’s been two years in the making, but film maker Vesta Giles and her team at Vandelso Productions have completed The Test, a documentary set around the wildfire events near Logan Lake in 2021, and the impact FireSmart practices had on the outcome.

“Putting all of that huge story into one finely tuned documentary and kind of bringing the story together like that, it’s been it’s been, I would say, thousands of hours,” Giles says.

The inspiration for the film came during the evacuation day. As residents were leaving, Giles realized they’d soon find out whether the FireSmart designation could hold its ground.

“And I was thinking about that sign on the road that says Logan Lake was Canada’s first FireSmart community, and thinking ‘they’re going to be put to the test.’”

Alongside telling stories of people on the ground that day, the documentary lays out how years of mitigation work and landscape maintenance in and around Logan Lake contributed to protecting the community when flames rushed in.

While the wildfire event itself was traumatizing for those who lived through it, Giles said there’s also an element of hope within the subject matter for viewers to take home with them.

“We can all clean our gutters, we can all get rid of wood piles around our house. We can all do these things and we’re not helpless waiting for someone to come rescue us, or someone to come protect us. There is a lot that we can do.”

The Test will hit the big screen for the first time at the Paramount Theatre in Kamloops on April 7.

“Come out and see a feel good story about wildfire instead of all the horror that we’ve seen, see something with some hope.”

With accessibility in mind, film makers say there will be open distribution of the documentary after the premiere.

“As soon as it goes to the Wildfire Resiliency and Training Summit at the end of the month in Prince George, after that it’ll be up on YouTube, and then it’ll be available to everybody.”