Day three. Smokey skies and the wind is coming from the South. Lighting strikes across the lake. A white plume shoots up in the blood-red evening sky. Almost beautiful. If it wasn’t for the knowing.

Day four. Blue skies. Heat. Black ashes on the white kitchen sink. The news show three fires of concern – small dots linking far spread communities: Dillon, Stoney, Stanley – and then moves on to the forecast. Wind: South/South-West.

Day five. Horseflies bite. Helicopters buzz. Fires everywhere and no rain. Grandmother’s Bay is on evacuation alert. My friend texts, they have to leave their cabin, fires are near. And still the wind is blowing from the South.

The boreal is on fire. 167,257 hectares burnt and burning. When the wind calms, smoke settles thick across the land. The dog crawls under a tree, senses the danger, hides. Would he know to run?

Day six. 30% chance of rain. Risk of thunderstorm. In the afternoon, thunder shakes the ground. Dry lightening. No rain. Southend is evacuating. Roads are closed. 70 fires across the North.

On day seven the wind turns. Smoke is blown to cities. A friend phones from down south. Where are the fires? I want to go canoeing up North. She’s worried about the smoke. I am too. All summer.

I’m wishing for rain, but even more so I’m wishing for that North Wind to keep blowing. The North is on fire, don’t you see? Black spruce are turning into skeleton trees. Moose calves are calling for their mothers in vain. Fox dens turn into graves. Trapline cabins turn to ashes.

Visibility is poor. But we don’t need to see to know that the forest is disappearing – day in, day out bunchers fell, logging trucks haul, earth is left barren and dry; fueling wind, fuelling fires, leaving clouds empty of rain.

I want the North Wind to keep blowing, burn images into your head, but already there’s a weather system moving in from the South. So we’re left with smoke, the fires, the knowing. And you are left with a map on the news.

By Miriam Körner