An 18-year-old Enderby firefighter put on a display of heroics Monday night when she swiftly rounded up people in Jasper National Park, getting them safely away from an encroaching wildfire.

Colleen Knull, a volunteer firefighter at the Enderby Fire Department, was working a summer job at the Jasper Lodge in the park. She has less than one year of experience as a firefighter, and was off duty on that July 22 night, but that didn't stop her from taking charge of a dangerous situation.

An evacuation order was issued for the area that night, but Knull said she saw the danger signs before it was issued. 

"My first indication that there was a fire was we had noticed smoke coming up from the mountainside, and during my previous training in wildfire, I used some of the knowledge that I obtained from that and applied it to read the smoke, wind directions and how close it was," she said.

She got an alert of the fire texted to her by a family friend, and about 15 minutes later, an evacuation order was issued for Jasper National Park. 

After receiving the order to evacuate, Knull started knocking on cabin doors, waking up the guests at the lodge. 

"Then I was notified that there was a hiker campground just above us and they had no way of knowing that we needed to evacuate," she said. "So I walked five minutes up the trail and then proceeded to evacuate everybody out of that area and bring them down into the rest of the group."

From there, she led a total of 16 people on a four-hour hike through difficult terrain, to where her truck was parked. 

Knull relied on her knowledge of the area and her firefighting training to lead the people through the dark to safety. 

"I had taken that trail previously, like a week before on horseback up to the lodge, and made note that there were 67 logs we had to cut to clear the trail on the way up. So on the way down, I knew there would be 67 logs we had to go past," she explained.

Upon reaching her truck, she crammed everyone in and drove through a road closure and into town, with the RCMP guiding her to where she could drop the people off safely. She then drove six hours to her hometown of Enderby. 

She credits her time spent in the bush when she was growing up as having prepared her for the emergency, as well as her gut feeling that danger was imminent. 

"When you get that feeling that something's off, you don't ignore it," she said. 

She also managed to keep things light during the ordeal. 

"The situation had to be taken seriously, but in a way where nobody would panic or get scared, so we kept everything calm. I told a couple jokes along the way and had a couple good laughs, but everybody got out safely which was the main thing that I was going for."

Knull said it was a team effort with good communication that helped get everyone out of the area safely, and she credits the training she's received from both the Enderby Fire Department and her mom Tina for preparing her.

Enderby Fire Chief Cliff Vetter told The Morning Star that Knull is a dedicated team member and "a real go-getter."

When he heard the news of Knull's heroics in Jasper, he said he simply thought, "that's her."