Northern Manitoba wildfire fighting efforts this summer have inspired a lasting tribute closer to home. It came when Amber Knutt of the Emerson Fire Department was working with her team on a fire break.

"With all of the charcoal and soot getting on my hands, I looked at somebody and said it'd be really cool if someone took the wood home and made pictures of what happened out here," she explained.

“So then I just started collecting pieces of wood that were really charred, and I brought them home and shaved them down into charcoal and reached out to a local artist, Mark Rodewald, and asked him if he would want to commission a piece for our fire department.”

The result was a striking piece of art titled "Silent Pines", taken from a photo snapped at the site by Bryan Preston.

Knutt talks a

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