Fallout from B.C. fires: lost homes, and tears
ASHCROFT — Little remains of the wreckage from Angie Thorne’s home after a wildfire tore through her reserve last summer. The blackened concrete, twisted metal chairs and seared welcome sign have all been removed, replaced with gravel backfill.
“It’s heartbreaking but it feels good to be back here,” Thorne says, looking around the place she lived for 21 years.
“Our lives are still very much affected,” she adds, her voice catching. “It doesn’t just stop because the cameras are off and nobody is talking about the fire.”
Months have passed since emergency crews doused the flames of B.C.’s precedent-setting wildfire season, but some residents of the Ashcroft Indian Band remain uprooted.
Standing beside Thorne, former chief Mae Kirkpatrick explains the struggle of living in the nearby village of Ashcroft with no timeline of return.
“It’s very depressing, because you can’t just walk outside and wave at the neighbour across the street,” says Kirkpatrick, 63. “Ashcroft is a different community. I have neighbours but I don’t see them. I don’t talk to them. I’m lost. I’m lonely and depressed down there.”
Thorne and Kirkpatrick turn and wave at two trucks that honk their horns as they pass. They smile as they wipe away tears. “That’s what I miss,” Kirkpatrick says.
Residents, fire experts and community leaders across the Interior say fallout from the most destructive wildfire season in the province’s recorded history will be felt for years to come.
What set an otherwise normal fire season apart was a two-day period in July that sparked more than 100 fires and prompted the provincial government to declare a state of emergency for the first time since 2003, said Kevin Skrepnek, spokesman for the B.C. Wildfire Service.
“July 7 certainly was a day I’ll never forget,” Skrepnek said. “Not to say other fires didn’t start later on, but those were the monsters we were dealing with for most of the season.”
More than 65,000 residents were forced from their homes over the summer as flames destroyed a record-setting 12,000 square kilometres. Despite the magnitude of the disaster, no one was killed, Skrepnek said.
“When you look at the sheer number of people who were on the front lines, all the other responders involved, the number of people who had to evacuate, in some cases in the middle of the night, the fact that there were no fatalities, no life-threatening injuries either, is just incredible,” he said.
The province has commissioned an independent report into how B.C. responded to the disaster — the first such review since former Manitoba premier Gary Filmon was tasked with looking into the 2003 fire season.