Acting fire captain
Scott Germain, an acting fire captain in the Fort McMurray fire department, was only a couple streets away from his home the day it burned to the ground.
The raging wildfire dubbed the “beast” stampeded through his property, despite the best efforts of firefighters, including Germain’s twin brother, Jamie.
For 29-year-old Scott, the first sign of trouble came via the emergency radio in his pumper. Listening to other firefighters nearby, he learned that houses on his street, Blackburn Drive, had caught fire.
But because of the vast number of homes on the street, he assumed his home remained safe.
Moments later, the radio sparked again with chatter, this time his colleagues suggesting the fire was close to a nearby school. It wasn’t good news for Scott, whose residence is only 10 houses away.
It wasn’t long after that his wife, Michelle, received confirmation from her firefighter friend, Rachelle Daniel, who was also on the scene battling the blaze. He called the fire truck on the radio to confirm the news himself, and then called his wife.
“We cried quickly,” he said. Devastated, Germain then called his mother with tears in his eyes.
“I said, ‘Mom it’s gone, the whole house was gone,’ ” he said. “I asked her to tell my dad, a volunteer firefighter, that everything is gone.
“Tell dad that we are okay but everything is gone.”
The next day, Germain revisited the site of his former home, now reduced to a smouldering pile of ashes. Peering into the blown-out basement area, under the buckled walls and coated in dust was a gun safe. It had fallen through the floor of the couple’s master bedroom.
After prying the charred box open, Germain retrieved a .22 rifle given to him by Michelle as a wedding gift three years earlier. Engraved on it was the couple’s wedding quote — “And I thought I loved you then” based on the Brad Paisley song — and other family signatures and sayings.
Germain said he teared up after seeing the picture of his brother Jamie battling the fire while on his knees. The photo also served as “the first big reminder that the house was gone.”
Still, he doesn’t hold anything against Jamie.
“I’ve been a firefighter for 10 years so know better than a lot of people that fires are so crazy and at the end of the day you can do everything but it’s still not enough,” he said. “By no means am I upset that Jamie wasn’t able to save it.
“We are 100 per cent comfortable with everything they did.”