‘Truly a Christmas miracle’: Black bear cub survives being burned in northern B.C.

The survival of a black bear cub, believed to have been burned earlier this week, is being described as a Christmas miracle by rescuers.

On Dec. 20, the Northern Lights Wildlife Society said it was alerted to a bear cub in “dire need” near Dawson Creek in northeast B.C., and said a volunteer rushed to the site to find the animal buried in snow at the base of a tree.

Northern Lights said the clock was ticking on whether the cub would even survive the night, given it was at least a nine-hour drive away to the society’s headquarters in Smithers amid bitterly cold conditions that were enveloping the province throughout the week.

But the cub successfully made her way to Northern Lights, thanks to volunteers who drove her first to Prince George and then to Smithers, after she was warmed up in a box.

Angelika Langen, manager and co-founder of the organization, said in a Christmas Eve update that the bear “endured so much” and her survival was “truly a Christmas miracle.”

“We thought that there might be frostbite and so on … we have confirmed that she, actually, was burned,” Langen said in the video update.

“We’re assuming that she was hibernating. And that the slash pile that she was hibernating in was put on fire,” she added. “It burned part of her fur off, it burned her face, it burned her feet, front feet, quite severely.”

However, Langen said the bear will survive, and thanked community members for sending well-wishes.

In an interview with CBC News, Langen said the bear was first spotted sleeping in the middle of a Dawson Creek road.

WATCH | Rescuers say survival of cub a miracle:

Rescuers say this northern B.C. bear cub’s survival was a Christmas miracle

A black bear cub sustained severe burns near Dawson Creek, B.C., earlier this week. It was taken all the way across the province by volunteers to the Northern Lights Wildlife Society in Smithers, where rescuers say, miraculously, it will recover.

“[Residents] figured that wasn’t a good place for her and kind of shooed her off the street and underneath the tree. That was on Saturday night,” the rescuer said.

“They realized that the bear was not OK and called us.”

Langen says she suspects the fire that burned the bear wasn’t deliberately set, and it’s quite common for hibernating bears to make their den within slash piles in the forest that are destined to be burned.

She said the cub was likely born in January, and was lean for her size, weighing in at 44 pounds (19.9 kilograms).

“It would have been a difficult hibernation for her at that weight to come out in the spring in good shape,” the rescuer said.

Langen says it’s unclear if the cub’s mother was with her or not at the time of the fire, though it’s likely she was, given that mother bears and cubs usually den together.

“There’s all kinds of possibilities that we can speculate on,” she said.

“But what we do know is that she burned, she froze, and now it’s just a long stretch of healing ahead of her.”

Northern Lights is based in Smithers, B.C., around 450 kilometres west of Dawson Creek as the crow flies.

It’s one of three organizations in the province permitted to raise orphaned bear cubs, and the only one allowed to rehabilitate and release grizzly bear cubs.