Steph Deschamps / August 15, 2025
A fish dropped from the sky by a raptor and hit a power line, causing a brush fire and brief power outage in western Canada last week.
The unbelievable story, revealed by firefighters in British Columbia, is making Canadian headlines. The incident occurred last Thursday near the municipality of Ashcroft, when firefighters were called to a wildfire.
According to them, an osprey, a species of raptor, seized its prey in a river 3 km away before dropping it in mid-air onto a power line.
The fish's contact with the wires would then have caused a spark and small embers, which in turn would have ignited the brush and dry grass on the ground.
Another clue, the fire department speculate, is that the bird of prey “had had enough of raw fish and wanted to try grilled fish”. Their photos show the fish lying dead on the ground, its carcass burnt to a crisp. The osprey escaped unharmed and continued its flight, the firefighters joke.
On a more serious note, they are pleased that the absence of wind last week enabled them to quickly bring this completely unusual fire under control in Western Canada, which is regularly prey to major forest fires in summer.