Hi, Park enthusiasts. I'm your host, Dilya DeAmbra. In the case I'm going to tell you

about today is a bizarre one. It's the story of a forestry worker who disappeared from

a fire-spotting tower in the middle of the Canadian wilderness under very suspicious

circumstances. What happened to 70-year-old Stephanie Stewart in the summer of 2006 is so

suspicious that law enforcement officials in Canada no longer consider her just a missing

person. They actually categorize her as a victim of a homicide, even though her body

has never been found. Stephanie worked as a fire spotter for Alberta's Sustainable Resource

Development Department, which meant she spent several months out of the year living alone

at a metal fire tower stationed in Alberta's landscape. A fire spotter is someone who spends

their entire day keeping a lookout for puffs of smoke or lightning that indicate wildfires

have sparked. When a spotter sees physical signs of a fire, they relay the precise geographical

location of smoke to firefighters so those individuals can address the problem before

it becomes deadly. According to Canada Park's website, there are more than 8,000 wildfires

each year across the country's provinces. Lightning strikes account for about 50% of those

burns, and in rare cases, officials have determined arson is the cause of some of them as

well. The roughly 130 fire spotters who work as lookouts are employed during the summer

months when fire dangers are at an all-time high. Many, if not all, the spotters are outdoor

enthusiasts who love nature and prefer the isolation of the woods over a busy city life.

To me, these employees seem to be cut from the same cloth as, say, lighthouse keepers.

They're people who thrive working alone. And Stephanie Stewart was no exception. She

loved the environment and the solitude of her tower. What exactly happened while she was

on duty 16 years ago has remained one of Canada's most baffling mysteries. This is Park Predators.

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