"Our goal was to hold the fire along its northeast flank," Mr. Smith said, "but the fire began to flame across the fire line, with very erratic behavior.
Despite the captain's assurances that it was nothing, the two engines soon began shooting flames.
Before Las Vegas hotels began belching flame and impersonating Venice and Paris, there were motor courts, tiny roadside collections of cabins where tired motorists would pull in at the end of a long drive.
By the time they got there, the flames were coming out of Spur Wood on a 20-yard front about 60 yards deep; but in one of the shifts which make heath fires very hard to fight, the wind changed, the flames began to advance to the side – and now the fire front was 60 yards wide.
"It was insane," said Linda Good, who lives near the spot where the fire began and watched the flames race over the mountain ridge.
Then, he said, the winds whipped up unexpectedly, and the flames began spreading toward Los Alamos.
Mr. Burkhart's arrest came after another chaotic night, as cars began exploding into flames after dusk.
Mr. Lazartes and three passengers escaped from the overturned car as flames began to spread, Inspector Kennedy said.
After burning through Fort McMurray, a shift in the winds on 16 May began to push flames back towards oil sands infrastructure north of the settlement.
Investigators have found signs that the flames began on a rear porch and moved to the upper level, where most of the bodies were found in several bedrooms.
