Evacuation makes you realize what’s not vital

It would be hard not to write about a traumatic event — even if it works out all right in the end. Last weekend, the forest fire that ravaged parts of Okanagan Centre forced Joan and me to abandon our home on 15 minutes notice.

We were lucky to have 15 minutes. One couple I talked with had less than two minutes.

“I looked out my window and saw the flames shooting up the trees at the end of our yard,” she said. “We just ran out the door and into our car.”

She assumed that their home was gone. She seemed surprisingly calm about it.

Eight homes burned; about 30 others suffered damage.

The fire moved so fast that no one had time to plan an orderly departure. According to one rumour, some people in a boat on the lake saw a wisp of smoke rising from the bushes along the lakeshore. By the time they got 911 on their cellphone, the fire had already vaulted the road and was racing up the steep slope beyond it.

Evacuation was not a new concept for us. In the last 20 years, we’ve watched at least half a dozen forest fires in our area. But always across the lake. Or well south of us. So we had considered, theoretically, what to do, what to take, in an emergency.

We’d take our pets, of course. And our passports and legal documents. I wanted to save my photographs, an irreplaceable record of experiences in over 60 countries. And 40 years of my journals. Joan had her own priorities.

It’s amazing how rational plans vaporize in a real emergency.

We stuffed an unwilling cat into his cage. We tossed a few days’ clothing into cases. Joan collected her jewelry and a few family pictures. I tucked my computer — my life support system — into the back seat of my car.

Then we drove away. Just as three police cars came down our street to evacuate the whole neighbourhood.

I was amazed at how calm, how polite, how considerate the police were. TV from the Excited States of America typically shows police as a paramilitary SWAT team, yelling orders, brandishing weapons, issuing threats. Not here. I’m so glad I live in Canada. Fifteen minutes out, we realized we had left behind some of Joan’s medical equipment. Also the box containing all our legal documents.

I went back. An officer stopped me at an intersection. A lone female officer. With no backup anywhere. I explained my errand. “I’m sorry,” she said. “That road is now closed. Is there any other way of getting to your house?”

“I could park along the waterfront and walk up a trail,” I replied.

“OK,” she said. “That area isn’t under evacuation order yet. Just don’t take long.”

Twice more, over the next two days, I encountered the same courtesy. I have a new respect for cops and firefighters.

And for politicians. Our ward councillor stood at a key intersection for 10 hours through the night, checking on the welfare of his constituents.

Our house was never really in danger. So perhaps I’m kidding myself that I was prepared to lose it if wind gusts had pushed the fire our way.

My books? I’ve read them. They’ve influenced me; they’re no longer necessary.

My journals? They started with grandiose notions of being like Samuel Pepys’ diaries of London in the 1660s. They have become something more like a daily time for meditation and reflection. That will continue, regardless.

My photos? To be honest with myself, who cares? Is anyone clamouring to see those old slides? Hardly.

The house? The garden? My tools? All replaceable. We’d grieve their loss, of course. But the memories would still be there, even if the physical associations were not.

I find — somewhat to my surprise — that I’m not as attached to “things” as I thought I was. Relationships matter; objects don’t.

I hope I’m not minimizing the trauma felt by the eight families in the community whose homes were reduced to charred rubble. I certainly do not want to go through that experience myself.

I’m sure if I had come home to a charred wreck, I would feel differently. Friends tell me it takes years to recover — if ever.

All I can say is that the prospect of losing everything did not terrify me. I learned something about myself that I didn’t know before. I’m almost grateful for that insight.

Jim Taylor is an Okanagan Centre author and freelance journalist. He can be reached at rewrite@shaw.ca.