Flames began to swirl and dance in the canopy of the evergreen trees below Matt Bishop and Steve Cooper. In just half an hour, a distant cloud of smoke had become a fire that surrounded their route down Baring Mountain in the North Cascades.

It was a nightmare scenario for every hiker.

Cooper sent an SOS message with the coordinates from his satellite communicator to an emergency call center. He called his partner and the emergency number 911.

The two poured water on their thin rain jackets to tie them over their faces, as the orange haze of thick smoke made it difficult for them to breathe, see each other and find an exit.

A local sheriff’s deputy had instructed them to shelter in place while they planned a possible rescue. The deputy reported shortly thereafter that a helicopter could not safely fly in to rescue them.

“It’s a raging forest fire,” Bishop said. “We just heard a roar like a jet engine and saw flames rising over the hill in front of us. And then you just feel the heat wave.”

The Bolt Creek fire, which broke out in early September 2022 and trapped the two hikers in an irregular pattern of wind-driven fires, may have been a dress rehearsal for longer fire seasons, particularly those extending west of the crest of the Cascade Range.

With hotter, drier summers brought on by human-caused climate change and more than a century of fire suppression, Washington and the rest of the Western U.S. are likely to see more fires each year. The hikers’ story illustrates the increased risks people can face on fire-sculpted mountains.

Those exploring the backcountry can usually avoid getting caught in a wall of flames, but authorities urge caution. Earlier this year, hikers were stranded on a trail near Lake Chelan as the Pioneer Fire spread along the northeast shore. The Chelan County Sheriff’s Office rescued them with a boat.

Next week will be cooler, which will curb fire activity somewhat, said Matt Dehr, a meteorologist with the state Department of Natural Resources. However, he expects another hot and dry period for the second third of the month.

In Washington, more acres of land have already burned this year than in 2022 and 2023 combined.

A landscape shaped by fire

Studies have shown that human-caused climate change has contributed to fuel depletion and doubled the area of ​​forest burned in the Western United States since the mid-1980s.

In Washington, this has been reflected primarily in larger wildfire areas, larger fires with higher intensity and longer fire seasons, says Crystal Raymond, a scientist at the University of Washington and deputy director of the Western Fire and Forest Resilience Collaborative.

But climate change is not the only factor. Past management practices such as wildfire suppression, native fire elimination, logging of large trees and more fire-resistant species, and more human-caused fires all contribute and have left Eastern Washington vulnerable to larger, more severe, and more frequent fires.

It’s harder to make a connection between climate change and fires west of the Cascade Range crest, Raymond says, because fires are so rare on the west side and there are simply fewer fires in recent historical records.

Wind is critical for large fires west of the ridge, and winds are not expected to change with climate change. But hotter, drier conditions from human-caused climate change are also expected to increase fire risk west of the Cascade Ridge.

In general, climate change is expected to lead to wetter springs, allowing for an explosion of grass fuels. By early summer, they dry out and are ripe for fire. Invasive grasses like cheatgrass make excellent torchbearers.

To start a fire, you need three things, says Guillame Mauger, a climatologist in Washington state. Ignition, which can be caused by a campfire, a cigarette, lightning or a downed power line. Fuel – like dry grass and wood. And fire weather: high temperatures, dry air and strong winds.

All three are affected by climate change, but the last two more directly.

“The fact that there is warming means it’s more likely to happen,” Mauger said. “We would expect the odds to be trending in that direction. But there are all these other factors that are important.”

In Washington, there has been a warming of about two degrees compared to the average annual temperature in 1900, Mauger said.

Washington’s average temperature in July was about 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit above normal. And precipitation was about 23% of normal.

August is typically the season with the highest fire danger in the state, said Dehr, the DNR meteorologist. There are no signs that things will slow down or let up from here, he said: The state will continue to burn more land, there will continue to be new fires across the landscape and resources to fight new fires are already nearly exhausted.

“As much as climate change is contributing to the problem and giving us more fire, living with fire is just part of life in the West,” Raymond said. “People need to find a way to live with fire and not think it’s going to go away anytime soon. Because in fact, we need more of the right kind of fire on the landscape.”

Towards the flames

Rocks and logs fell down the slopes above Bishop and Cooper as they began to make their way down the mountain.

After hitting several – according to Cooper, many – dead ends with cliffs and tall brush, they found an avalanche chute.

They waded through what were at times chest-high devil’s clubs, ferns, thorny berry bushes and other greenery and stumbled down the mountain, their feet often losing their footing and stepping into the melon-sized boulders, Cooper said.

“We had to keep going because we could hear the fire behind us,” Cooper said.

They ran out of water in the afternoon. They had packed about two liters each when they set out before 7 a.m. They contacted relatives to make sure the road was still safe and open and continued on their way.

From the avalanche gully they crossed a scree field and a dense maple forest and reached an area with less undergrowth.

“That’s when I knew we could do it,” Bishop said. “Up to that point, it was very hard and slow, every step was a challenge.”

They raced the last bit back to the trail. Unlike in movies, Cooper said, where a rescue team waits at the exit and provides medical assistance for smoke inhalation or cuts, all they found in the parking lot was Bishop’s Jeep.

They threw in their backpacks and headed down the gravel road to an empty Highway 2, where a concerned ranger was relieved to see them. When they stumbled into a gas station in Sultan, Snohomish County, they told a local resident that they were the two stranded hikers everyone was worried about.

“For the first two weeks afterward, I just thought, ‘Wow, I’m alive,’ but I couldn’t comprehend that I was still alive,” Cooper said. “At some point, we said goodbye.”

The following spring, the two returned to the Bolt Creek burn scar to tell their story to High Country News.

Cooper said his most important message to others is to do your research before you leave – to look for warning signs and smoke – and, when it’s safe, to pack for the unexpected.

“Have an exit plan,” Cooper said.