Devastating Fort McMurray blaze affects many in NWT
Residents in various communities raise funds for victims; Hay River mayor says community prepared to take people in
Kassina Ryder
Northern News Services
UPDATED: Monday, May 9, 2016
NORTHWEST TERRITORIES
A former Fort Providence family is included in the 88,000 people who have been displaced by a fire that engulfed much of Fort McMurray last week.
This was the scene as Shauna and JJ Canadien escaped a wildfire that surged into Fort McMurray May 4. The couple, who hail from Fort Providence, lived in the town's Beacon Hill neighbourhood, 70 per cent of which was destroyed. - photo courtesy of Shauna and JJ Canadien |
Shauna and JJ Canadien's house was in Fort McMurray's Beacon Hill neighbourhood, which ended up being one of the most ravaged - 80 per cent of it was razed.
The couple had lived in the house with their daughters Gabriella, 7, and Alessandra, 8, for the past four years.
"There was this sense of urgency, for sure," Shauna said about their May 3 escape. "The smoke clouds were there, we could see the red, and then when I got out away from the condos and onto the main road, I could see - because our subdivision is bordering the bush - I could see the flames coming."
The fire had been threatening the city since May 1 but on May 3 it grew quickly, moved into the city and breached Highway 63, the only road link to the south. As of press time May 6, the fire was still burning out of control and had grown to a size of 1,000 square kilometres.
"I know their home and everything is gone," said Linda Croft, a Fort Providence resident who has set up an online fundraising campaign for the family.
She said when she and other Fort Providence residents heard about the Canadiens' situation, they knew they had to help.
"Because we are a very small community here and they both are friends and family to many of us here, we thought we'd start a GoFundMe page," said Croft. "The youth in the community here think of her (Shauna) as a second mother, she's just a great person. We just want to do what we can."
Donna Lee Jungkind, Hay River's deputy mayor, said her husband Ron Jungkind was forced to escape the couple's condo in the city on May 3. Ron works for oil and gas company Canadian Natural Resources Limited. When he left Fort McMurray, Jungkind said Ron drove back to his office north of the city.
He spent the night in his office before being given accommodations at the Horizon Oil Sands camp facility.
"He's quite a bit north of where the fire is and where they are, they have fairly good resources," she said. "Of course I'm concerned, but I'm feeling confident that he'll be OK."
But Jungkind said that confidence didn't come right away. First, Ron had to make the slow, dangerous journey from the city back to the camp.
"It took them five hours to get 75 kilometres," Shauna said. "So that was just a little stressful because there is a lot happening all at once and nobody exactly knew what was happening."
Jungkind said she had no information about whether their condo, which is located in the Timberlea neighbourhood, had been damaged.
For Dawn Locklyn-White, it was her husband's 2 p.m. call about the fire reaching the golf course near their Wood Buffalo neighbourhood on May 3 that triggered an escape from the city that would last 12 hours.
She ran through her home dumping whatever belongings she could easily grab into a bag, both parents drove to separate schools to pick up their three children as well as neighbour's children, then they crept along the roadway heading south.
"The traffic was so bad I didn't know if we'd make it to both (schools)," she said.
Photos her 13-year-old son took show buildings and vehicles burning on a street as they drove past.
"I never have seen anything like it in my life, it was the scariest thing I've seen," said Locklyn-White, who lived in Yellowknife for eight years before moving to Fort McMurray in 1999.
They drove about 250 km south to Plamondon, Alta., where they have a fifth wheel trailer at a campground. The municipal government said at least 30 homes in her neighbourhood were gone, some close to hers.
"My alarm system is saying my home is OK," she said on May 4.
In the Timberlea neighbourhood, Adam Johnson recalled listening to a local radio station with increasingly panicked coverage as mandatory evacuation orders expanded. Then coverage ended.
"Their last transmission was basically, 'Get out of your houses and head north,'" he said.
Johnson, a News/North reporter from 2006 to 2008 who still helps with the newspaper's website, began packing items from the trailer he has rented for the past six months with his partner Amanda Vaughn, including their two dogs.
The mandatory evacuation order for their neighbourhood in the northwestern part of the city came around 7 p.m. but they waited as long possible with only a quarter tank of gas to fuel their escape. Traffic was slow. The gas light had come on in the first half-hour of the four-hour journey to the community of Anzac, normally a 20-minute drive.
As they drove between downtown and a wealthier suburb in the city called Beacon Hill, the flames were shooting hundreds of feet in the air, he said. Fire was up to the side of the highway and vehicles were abandoned, including a transit bus left in the median outside the city.
"The fact that firefighters managed to save anything in Fort McMurray is commendable," Johnson said from an Edmonton hotel May 4.
Various efforts have already begun across the NWT to support fire victims.
The Government of the Northwest Territories announced May 5 it would donate $50,000 to the Canadian Red Cross Alberta Fires Appeal. This is on top of an offer to assist Alberta's forest fire operations announced the day before. Specifically, the government is sending aircraft and has offered firefighters, overhead personnel and fire equipment.
In Hay River, Mayor Brad Mapes said the community is prepared to take in anyone who has been displaced by the disaster.
"Our community is ready to help with accommodating people that are needing places to go," he said, adding Hay River's Royal Canadian Legion Branch 250 is also collecting donations.
Canadian North began transporting people out of the fire zones in oil sands sites on May 4, according to the airline's Facebook page. The company was also bringing supplies such as food and water to the sites.
At a meeting in Fort Providence on May 4, Deh Cho First Nations leaders decided to "pass the hat" for fire victims, according to a press release.
More than $600 was raised when administrators agreed to match leaders' donations and donations are still being received, the release said.
In Yellowknife, servers at the Black Knight Pub donated tips they received May 4 to the Canadian Red Cross. Residents held a vigil and fundraiser for victims downtown on May 5.
Alberta Premier Rachel Notley said on May 4 the fire had destroyed at least 1,600 structures. No accounting for loss had been released since that announcement, and Notley announced May 6 damage will be assessed once the fire is out.
The cause remains under investigation.
- with files from Shane Magee and John McFadden
