Kevin Eastwood Turns Lens on BC Blazes with ‘Wildfire’

A new documentary series from filmmaker Kevin Eastwood (BFA 1999) takes viewers inside the record-breaking 2023 wildfire season with behind-the-scenes footage of veteran wildland firefighters battling some of BC’s fiercest blazes.

Wildfire also explores the accounts of residents from the communities most affected by 2023’s devastating fire season, such as West Kelowna, Gun Lake and Revelstoke — though Kevin notes the line between resident and first responder is sometimes blurry, if it exists at all.

“What I hope Wildfire demonstrates is that these firefighters care about the communities and, in fact, are part of the communities,” says Kevin, the series showrunner and co-director. “As we see throughout the show, they’re affected firsthand by the fires. Sometimes, their own homes have burned down. Some of them have lost family to wildfires. Yet they have a sense of duty which they continue to honour in the face of all this danger. I thought we needed to give them a little more attention.”

Wildfire was created by Kevin’s Optic Nerve Films in partnership with CK9 Studios and led by series co-directors Simon Shave and Clayton Mitchell, both of whom have a decade of experience as wildland firefighters. The five-part miniseries debuted Apr. 29 on Knowledge Network, where it can be viewed for free by BC residents.

Wildfire offers a breathtakingly intimate look at BC’s wildfires, bringing viewers alongside elite members of the BC Wildfire Service who deploy cutting-edge tactics combined with sheer grit to fight fires in both remote and inhabited areas.

The stunning footage was only possible due to the unprecedented access granted to the co-directors by the BC Wildfire Service, which regularly declines requests for filmmakers to join their unit crews. According to Kevin, the organization turned down more than 140 proposals in 2024 from networks including Netflix and HBO, largely to avoid sensationalizing the peril of BC residents and firefighters.

But Kevin’s track record of ethical practice in sensitive situations combined with Simon and Clayton’s firefighting experience persuaded the cautious wildfire authorities. Simon and Clayton would handle camerawork on the fire line while Kevin would lead all other filming, conduct interviews and oversee Wildfire’s broader construction and other filmmaking tasks.

“It was also key that I was talking to Knowledge Network,” Kevin says. “Having a public broadcaster meant the show would be free to all British Columbians, which was a good fit. They would never have said yes if it was a subscription service like Disney+.”

Like past productions including Emergency Room: Life and Death at VGH and Humboldt: The New Season, Kevin says Wildfire is compelling not merely for the cinematic intensity of its nominal subject.

“All of these projects show people behaving in ways that illuminate certain things about human nature,” Kevin says. “In crisis, in grief or in intense moments, all the banal stuff of the world is cut away and you get to the essence of what it is to be a human being.”

He adds that such revelations, while delicate, are at the heart of his filmmaking practice.

“A person is sharing their story. There’s nothing more personal or more valuable than that,” he says. “I take that responsibility very seriously. I see the work I do inherently as a collaboration, as a partnership, which is why I never use narration. I let people tell their stories in their own words, and I just try to help them tell it in the best possible way.”

Watch Wildfire now via the Knowledge Network.

Visit Optic Nerve Films online and follow them on Instagram to learn more about Kevin’s work.