February 12, 2025

In July 2024, avid adventurer and nurse Brittany Farrish was 3 days into a planned 4-day backpacking trip in the Fryatt Valley of Jasper National Park in Alberta, Canada. At the end of that day, she and her hiking partner Kelsey were blissfully relaxing on an inflatable tube in a pristine glacial lake. They couldn’t have imagined what the next 24 hours would bring.

There hadn’t been much rain in the area for some time, so the thought of drought hazards was on Brittany’s mind. Laying in her tent that night, she saw a flash of lightning. That worried her.

Still, the plan was to hike out the next day, so they went to sleep for the night.

Brittany typically uses check-in messages on her inReach® satellite communication device¹ to send quick updates to her contacts. But that next morning, Brittany noticed she had received several messages. The messages were from friends and family, warning her that they needed to get out of the park as quickly as possible. The lightning had ignited wildfires, and the whole park was being evacuated.

They packed up and left immediately, moving quickly over the course of four hours back to the trailhead. They could see an increasing plume of smoke rising above the trees as they moved.

“Adrenaline will move you faster than you thought you could,” Brittany said.

Brittany’s friends back at home were watching the highway closures being posted online and sending messages to her inReach device with directions on how to get out of the park because options were changing rapidly.

Once at the trailhead, Brittany and Kelsey jumped in their car and headed toward the highway. The road, however, was blocked by downed trees. They got out and tried to move the trees. They wouldn’t budge, and there was no other way out. Kelsey and Brittany were stranded in the park.

Meanwhile, Brittany’s friends had contacted emergency services to let them know Brittany and Kelsey were in the park and trying to get out. Using her inReach device, Brittany was able to update friends and family and start communicating with the responding search-and-rescue team members.  

“The reality of our situation was coming together,” Brittany said. “They were not going to be coming with a chainsaw — they would be coming with a helicopter.”

Communicating via the inReach device also allowed responders to know Brittany’s exact location — a relief because smoke was closing in from multiple directions and affecting visibility from above. While they waited for help to arrive, the cloud of smoke grew bigger and nearer. Brittany could hear the fires in the distance. Helicopters had been passing over all day, evacuating others from the park, so all they could do was sit and wait for theirs to arrive.

Eventually, their helicopter did land in a clearing in the distance, and a woman from the rescue team emerged from the trees.

“They came, they’re going to take us out of here, we’re going to be OK after this,” is all Brittany could think in that moment.

But her first helicopter ride was a bit different than she had imagined.

“It was heroes flying us,” she said. “Not tour guides.”

There were already other evacuees in the helicopter and as they all ascended into the sky, Brittany said she felt “even more thankful they arrived when they did — and while they still could.” It was apparent how big, and how close, the fires were to where they had been stranded. She said it was heartbreaking to witness.

“Jasper National Park is a place many people around the world have fond memories of, and now we see it burning,” she said.

By the time Brittany and Kelsey landed in a parking lot outside of Jasper townsite, there was already an efficient evacuation system in place. They were driven by Jasper National Park personnel into town where friends and family were waiting. Brittany said it was “incredibly organized,” and that they were given food, water, chargers and provided showers with donated supplies.

“We are ever so grateful for the kindness we received from those wonderful people on such a chaotic day,” she said.

Ultimately, more than 20,000 people were safely evacuated from Jasper National Park and the town of Jasper. The wildfire complex grew to nearly 33,000 hectares (81,545 acres) — the largest the park has recorded in the last century, burning houses and infrastructure and requiring the response of hundreds of firefighters from Canada and beyond. The wildfire wasn’t classified as under control until late September.

When Brittany purchased her inReach Mini 2 satellite communicator, she was hoping to never have to use it in an emergency scenario — but she’s glad she had it when faced with one.

“Without the inReach, we wouldn’t have had any information about what was approaching us that day, and we would have…