Fire No. 8 was reported at 6:30 P.M., May 19, which was the first really warm day of the 1958 spring. The weather had previously been dry but cool. It was reported to the Forest Engineer and he and the Chief Warden proceeded to the fire location meanwhile directing the Carmacks patrolman to gather a crew and proceed to the fire. When located the fire was found to be about 125 acres in size, long and narrow in shape. After inspecting the fire the Forest Engineer and Chief Warden returned to Whitehorse to obtain men, equipment and supplies. Patrolman Jim arrived later during the night with a crew of five men and began suppression.

During the next day the total force was increased to nineteen men and the spread of the fire was stopped. Fire-guarding with hand tools continued successfully until May 23^rd, when a spot fire, five hundred feet outside the fireline, which

had been overlooked by the patrols, flared up in the late afternoon and, swept by very high winds, travelled about six miles on a front reaching four miles in width.

It was then decided that complete control of a fire this size was not possible with the forces which could be raised, under the weather conditions then

prevailing. It was hoped that spread westward and northward would be limited by the previous year's burn and decided that work should be concentrated on the south side where considerable areas of green timber were threatened. A D-4 Caterpillar was moved to the fire and a line about six miles in length constructed between May 25 and June 12, although considerable line was lost in the process. This fireline was held successfully from June 12 to June 20, when very high winds broke out, the fireline was breached and practically

all of it lost. At this time one camp was cut off and the crew was forced to abandon it with the resulting loss of tents, blankets and other equipment.

After June 20, the bulk of the Forestry Division's attention was concentrated on large fires nearer Whitehorse. However, on June 27, the Braeburn fire reached the Whitehorse-Mayo Road at mile Post 65. Patrolman Jim and a small crew from Carmacks attempted but were unable to halt its spread northwestward. Later another arm of the fire burned westward to Braeburn Lake and would have burned several cottages and a church came but for Patrolman Jim's efforts. No major effort to control the whole fire or any large segment of it could be made after June 20, however.

Beginning August 22, a crew was employed to control a section of the line on the south end where it appeared that a new area of green timber was threatened. The general fire hazard was by this time lower and the threat to private property in the Whitehorse area had abated so it was possible to spare men and equipment

for this effort. The section constituted, however, only a tiny fraction of the total fire perimeter at that time.