The photo above shows what I saw as I pedaled my bicycle home from the library on May 5th, 2023. When I got to the highway, and saw all of the smoke, I knew I’d better start pedaling faster, and get home as fast as I could. Our house is located to the left of the photo at the bottom of the slope.
As soon as I got home, we figured that we would probably have to evacuate, so we immediately started to gather our valuables together. The photo below shows the scene from our house as we worked to pack up our car and pickup truck. It wasn’t long before the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) arrived at our door to tell us that we must evacuate; leaving our home behind to whatever fate was in store for it.
It was certainly a memorable stressful moment for us, not knowing whether we would have a home, full of all our hard earned possessions, to return to after the forest fire. We were very fortunate.
While the fire continued to burn in our direction, it began to burn angling upslope, sparing the lower sections of the mountain. Then too, the wind changed directions and the threat in our direction lessened, and there was rain that night.
Although we suffered no losses, that fire was sure a wake-up call for us. It led me to start doing a lot of work on the trees and other flammable surroundings close to our house, in an effort to diminish the possibility of fire on our house. I still have a lot of work to do in that effort, because the threat still exists. Summer after summer now, enormous forest fires have been burning unchecked through Canada’s massive forest lands. Summers have now become a scary time for us, living where we do.
This 2023 forest fire didn’t even occur during the summer, it happened in early May, so the Fire Season has really lengthened, because of the changing climate.
You can view my paintings: davidmarchant2.ca
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