catnipcookie:matopants:7 days ago my house burned down. In fact, my entire neighbourhood burned
catnipcookie: matopants: 7 days ago my house burned down. In fact, my entire neighbourhood burned down. It hasn’t been exactly 7 days yet, at this time I was probably still in my bed, or maybe just waking up. I had a bath that morning. I didn’t know that was the last time I’d lie in that bed, or soak for a little too long in that bathtub. We knew there was a forest fire nearby. Less than a mile from Gregoire, was what I heard. But having entirely too much faith in the belief that this sort of thing only happens in movies, we didn’t pack anything up just in case. I walked over to the local gas station around lunch time. I’d had a bowl of cereal earlier (not entirely healthy - but 2 meals a day was my norm). Ostensibly I wanted to get a slushie, but really it was because I’d signed up to do a Comfort Zone Crusher challenge, after watching some TED talks and the like. So I lay down on the sidewalk and took a picture of my feet. I took it so that you could see the smoke from the fire. It would be kind of interesting, right? Look how close the fire seems. But we’re totally safe. And there’s my feet. Comfort zone crushed. I did an unusual thing in public and no one really looked. Everyone was too busy looking at the smoke. Deed done, I went into the store and bought a bottle of juice and some sunflower seeds. I’d taken a picture of the smoke on the way over, and took another on the way home. Once I got home, I looked at them and realized how quickly the smoke had gotten much darker, thicker, and more ominous. Still, forest fires are a regular part of life in Alberta. I wasn’t worried. I posted the pictures on Facebook, before and after. That was around 1:30 in the afternoon. Look how quickly forest fires can spread and worsen! 10 minutes later, we were on a voluntary evacuation notice. I’d never been evacuated from anything before, but Gregoire was evacuated a couple days ago and they were still fine. I started collecting some things to take. Packing a bit like a vacation. For some reason I brought 2 bathing suits…? What else should I take? Enough clothes for a week or two so they get the fire under control and we can return home, I suppose. And my important documents, just in case. Some of my jewelry. My dolls, as they’re kind of expensive, and anyway they’re still in their boxes from the last time i moved. Easy to poke them in the car. 20 minutes after that, the evacuation was mandatory. My father finally got home from work, but he had no time to do much of anything before the police were running through our neighbourhood, pounding on doors, ordering us out. I got in the truck with dad, mom took the other vehicle. My sister lived one block away, her and her daughter were hurriedly throwing things into their car as the ash rained around them. This was starting to feel a bit surreal. Still, I’d seen ash falling on the Okanagan Lake in BC because of a forest fire, and everyone’s lakeside cabins were fine. Surely our things were still safe too. We got on the road, but traffic was barely moving. There’s only one way into or out of our neighbourhood of Abasand (unless you’re willing to offroad it through the trees - not a risk I’d take with a forest fire coming on fast). My sister phoned several times. They were closer to the fire, and they were panicking. The fire was in the trees at the end of the street they were stuck on, and their car had moved maybe 5 car lengths in the past hour. (Was it an hour? That’s what she’d said. I could hardly believe it had been that long.) Eventually emergency personnel came along and told them they’d be better off abandoning the car. Along came my sister with two suitcases and my niece with their cat. We were stuck in the traffic jam not far from them so they added their things to the truck and climbed into the car with my mother. It wasn’t too much longer and we were finally moving. We wanted to head south, away from the fire - they had RVs already set up a couple hours south, for a summer’s worth of camping weekends, and we could wait out the evacuation order there before heading home. (But would there be a home to return to?) I don’t even know at what point during that day I realized we weren’t going to be heading home to anything besides charred ruins, but by the time we met up with my brother-in-law, it was solidified as fact in my mind. But I digress. First we had to head downtown to pick up my newphew. We were a couple blocks away from the school when my sister had to jump out of the car and run again - this time in order to meet up with her son before they put him on a school bus and shipped him off to one of the evacuation shelters. Now that we were downtown, we pulled into the Canadian Tire parking lot briefly to gather our wits. The way south was now closed - the fire had jumped the highway and was now burning on both sides. My brother-in-law was still at his work north of the city though, so we decided to meet up with him. There were evacuation shelters set up north of the city if it came to that. The radio had previously reported that they were full though. The radio wasn’t even live anymore - they’d been evacuated too. We crawled north through the downtown core. Looking to our left, I could see the fire was travelling faster than we were. Eventually, after what must have been several lifetimes, we made it to my brother-in-law’s side. I think it was probably around 5 or 6 o’clock by then. Everyone exchanged hugs. The first thing I said to him? “We’re homeless.” “I know,” he said. My dear friend shared her story about the fires that chased her out of her home. We are here for you @matopants and we love you. -- source link