British Columbia, Canada, is currently experiencing a state of emergency. According to CBC News, 2017 marks the worst wildfire year on record for the Canadian province, with 138 wildfires burning as of August 18th, 2017.
On July 29th, 2017, one of these blazes ignited on the edge of B.C.’s South Thomson River— but to everyone’s amazement, one quick-thinking boater managed to keep the flames contained in a rather ingenious way!
Forty-three-year-old speed demon Koyne Watson was boating on the South Thompson River with his fiancée Tasha Hunt at the time of the incident.
Although the Saturday afternoon had gone smoothly with the pair enjoying a typical day on the lake, at some point they begin to catch a hint of smoke in the air.
“We were like, ‘Holy crap, is that a fire?'” Tasha tells Interior News.
Although Tasha immediately called emergency services to deal with the blaze on the edge of the river, fiancé Koyne had a better idea, revving his engine and going full throttle on the flames!
Tasha tells Interior News, “[Koyne] took a pass at it, and he hit the flames. The flames started to kind of go down. So, he kept going and doing pass after pass until the fire trucks came .”
Lori Jane Arnott, a fellow boater who was at South Thompson River at the time of the events and managed to capture Koyne’s feat on video, explains to Interior News:
“We could see the ‘cigarette boat’ as they are called whipping around, dousing it with its rooster tail of water spray.” She tells CBC News, “Everyone stood up on their boats and applauded him. He was the definitely the hero of the day.”
Throughout Lori’s 3-minute video, you can hear stunned witnesses watching Koyne’s heroic antics.
“Unbelievable!” you can hear a man yell off-screen, followed by another stunned voice exclaiming, “He’s putting it out, literally!”
Tasha tells CBC News, “There were people in boats cheering. It was hilarious! I can’t believe we shot the water up that high.”
According to Trail Times, most boats would not have been able to shoot the water up as high as Koyne did, but Tasha explains that her fiancé “has an inverter that makes it jet up as high as he wants.”
Since Lori’s video was uploaded to Facebook, it has been viewed over 338,000 times. People just can’t seem to get enough of Koyne’s quick-thinking, fire-extinguishing ways!
Although Koyne had to replace a rubber trim on his jet boat, Tasha says that it did not sustain any serious damage.
From one Canuck to another, good job Koyne!
Please SHARE this with your friends and family.
