HERO COUNTRY
As a raging inferno burns their community to the ground, the residents of Fort McMurray come face to face with another staggering force of nature: the kindness of strangers
If Fort McMurray, Alberta, wasn’t already “Canada’s city” due to the influx of people from across the country seeking work during the oil boom, it is now.
With flames shooting to the heavens, ash falling from the skies, dense smoke turning day to twilight, a wildfire that drove Fort McMurray’s 80,000 residents from the city and destroyed more than 1,600 homes and buildings by Wednesday seemed almost biblical in its wrath.
Yet with the head of the Alberta Emergency Management Agency acknowledging the possibility that much of Fort McMurray could be burned to the ground in what officials are calling the “Horse Creek Fire,” the response by Canadians near and far was instinctive and generous.
Even as the city emptied and front-line crews battled to save the city — their task made more difficult by high temperatures and strong winds — a Facebook group sprang up offering lodging, meals, pet care, diapers and other supplies. It illustrated nothing so much as humanity’s best instincts made real.
“Two spare bedrooms with private 4piece bathroom and private living room with TV and cable, Wi-Fi. Shared kitchen. Also have a holiday trailer available. Fenced in yard and playroom for kids. Call or text anytime.”
“Calmar home. 6 beds available. All pets welcome. Can accommodate seniors & babies.”
“Acreage between Barrhead and Westlock. Have room for livestock and pets, also have a camper, sleeps 8.”
“Bedroom available near Pickardville, kid friendly. Baby items available.”
There was heartening word from Mayor Melissa Blake — grateful to insert some good news into a grim day in which Alberta declared a state of emergency in Fort McMurray and two fatalities in a highway accident were reported — that at least two children had been born at a housing camp for oilsands workers north of town.
There was the remarkable image of Karley Kenney, on horseback, texting as she rode, galloping through downtown Fort McMurray with two other horses in tow, scrambling for her life and theirs.
While people used words like surreal, hellish, apocalyptic to describe the scene they were fleeing, and officials said they were satisfied all residents were safely out, human goodness went viral.
Oil companies made their work camps available to evacuees. First Nations reserves in the region offered welcome. So did the Sikh gurdwara in Edmonton, where the Northlands Exhibition Centre prepared to serve as the main reception area and accommodate more than 1,000 people. A service station offered to repair flat tires suffered in the dash for safety for free. A Calgary dog-boarding kennel offered to house up to 15 dogs for free and for long as necessary.
Ed and Sara Saunderson, who live 30 km south of the city, took in staff from their Fort Mac plumbing and heating business along with a host of strangers. Ed said almost 40 people bedded down, in the “basement, the garage, my fifth-wheeler (a mobile home) . . . everywhere.”
“When people are in need, you have to help them,” he told the Star’s Michael Robinson. “It’s a moral issue . . . if I can help ya, I’ll help ya.”
The Saundersons also opened their doors to their unexpected guests’ pets.
“We have had eight dogs, 11 cats, a ferret, snake and even a bird showed up last night,” Sara said.
But as winds changed Wednesday and started pushing the fire south toward the Saunderson home, the household and menagerie decided to clear out.
“I can’t take that chance,” Saunderson said. “Everyone else who is still here, we are putting them in my vehicles and getting out of Dodge.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said people all across the country — especially Atlantic Canada — have connections to Fort McMurray.
“We are there for each other in difficult times,” he said, promising the emergency in the oilsands town “is something that we’re going to unite around across this country.”
Alberta Premier Rachel Notley flew north to survey the scene Wednesday and tweeted pictures of the fire. “The view form the air is heartbreaking,” she wrote.
Even so, on the lips of evacuees was nothing so much as gratitude.
In nearby Anzac, where volunteers served eggs and pancakes to some of the 2,500 people in a recreation centre, Chantelle Boutin said she was glad she and her husband had found safety.
They brought their two dogs, but one had died from stress, she said. “We lost our house. We lost everything. But we didn’t lose our spirit.”
From her car on Highway 63 heading south to Edmonton, Nancy Keenan, a substitute teacher with three young children, told the Star the fire reached town pretty much out of the blue.
On Monday, she kept her two oldest kids home from school and indoors because there was smoke in the air and 6-year-old Liam has asthma.
But Tuesday “started out as such a normal day,” she said. So Liam and his 9-year-old sister Claire were in class. But at noon, “the sky just went really dark,” said Keenan. “It just all of a sudden got really bad.”
She started taking pictures of the sky. Then she started packing.
By 1 p.m., her mother called to say there’d been an evacuation order.
“It was sort of a panic after that,” Keenan said. She and husband Tom, with their toddler Julia, fetched the older children from school, then hit the highway.
The road south was closed, so the Keenans headed north to a Syncrude work camp, with its rooms of single beds.
“They were really good to us,” Keenan said. “There were five of us and they were really good about giving us two rooms with the adjoining bathroom.”
Keenan, who grew up in Fort Mac, said she’d never been through anything like that.
By the time she went to bed Tuesday night at about 10 p.m., “I looked out and the highway was just blocked with people coming into Syncrude.”
By Wednesday, the fight raged on. Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale praised front-line responders and promised all necessary help.
From England, Queen Elizabeth said she was “shocked and saddened” by the devastation and offered her “heartfelt thanks to the firefighters and the other emergency workers.”
Meanwhile, the highway south out of Fort McMurray re-opened, the Keenans packed up and headed for Edmonton, where a cousin had offered to put them up.
As the family sat in the long lineup for gas, two hours south of Fort McMurray at Wandering River, Keenan marvelled at the a community rallying together in hard times.
“There’s a little golf cart that just went by,” she said. “They’re giving out cups of water to the all the people sitting in line.
“People have been amazing.”