An out-of-control fire was advancing rapidly toward a logging road on Tuesday afternoon, tearing through Canada’s immense — and highly flammable — boreal forest with a force and intensity bewildering to a team of French firefighters.

Surrounded by thick smoke, a handful of them headed into the forest to search for water. A veteran knelt down and used his right finger to sketch a plan on the gravel road, pressing to attack the fire head-on.

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But the commander was not convinced. The fire, he said, was of an immensity unimaginable in France. The conifers of a combustibility they had never encountered. Trying to douse this tiny patch would be “pointless.”

Read more: The New York Times