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Slave Lake wildfire aftermathThousands of residents who were forced to leave their northern Alberta, Canada homes as wildfire burned through their town are now waiting to hear if their homes withstood the fire, and when they can go home.
Brenda Eben-Ebenau, a 30-year resident in the town of Slave Lake who evacuated to her Edmonton condo Sunday afternoon, said that she has been glued to the TV to learn as much as possible about the situation of the town.
“It’s chaos. It looks like a war zone,” Eben-Ebenau said in a telephone interview on Monday afternoon. “We have had fires before, but nothing this close, ever.”
Sixty-eight wildfires started within 24 hours in the area, according to a Province of Alberta press release. By Sunday, the government had deployed around 1,000 fire-fighters, 100 helicopters, 20 air tankers and “scores of heavy ground-based machines” to fight the fires, 29 of which, including the one that engulfed Slave Lake, were burning out of control.
“Right now they are not letting anybody in except for emergency workers. So we just kind of sit here and wait,” said Eben-Ebenau.
While most of her neighbors’ houses are burned, Eben-Ebenau said she had heard that her home is still standing.
“I don’t know how that happened, maybe the wind pushed the fire the other way,” she said.
Police said that nearly a third of the town has been destroyed or damaged by the unanticipated fire. The town’s new library and town office also fell to the flames.
“The new library just opened last year,” said Eben-Ebenau. “It is a fundraised library that the residents here fundraised $500,000 for. But it’s now gone.”
“It has been heart wrenching to see how quickly this wildfire moved and the effect it’s had on our community,” said Slave Lake’s Mayor, Karina Pillay-Kinnee, in a press release.
Alberta’s Premier Ed Stelmach assured Slave Lake residents that a newly formed “task force of key governmental ministries” will deal with their immediate needs, as well as help chart a path for the future, also in a release.
Minutes to Leave
[youtube]6kma8_BIo54[/youtube]When the fire began taking over the town Sunday afternoon, Eben-Ebenau herself only had a few minutes to get her belongs together.
“I just got all the things that I can’t replace into the vehicle and got a suitcase together,” she said. “Literally we had a five-minute warning. It was really scary.”
With two foster children to bring along, Eben-Ebenau narrowly escaped town after she missed a convoy of cars escaping the fire zone.
“I missed the convoy, but I saw a policeman, and he told me follow him and escorted me through the bear trails.”
Eben-Ebenau is now at her Edmonton condo, a three-hour drive from Slave Lake, where her daughter, who attends university in Edmonton, lives. She said she was comforted to be able connect with some of her friends through Facebook after the fire and find out they are all right. Most of the other residents are now staying in neighboring towns either with friends or in recreation centers.
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