Living on Evacuation Notice

Early this week a fire started from a burn pile in the new “fire smart” safety area. (the government built fire guard) The fire got out of control and has been spreading towards Nordegg. We are really close to the fire it is around 1 kilometer away from Frontier Lodges property. Between the fire and Nordegg there is a ridge they are thinking might help as a natural fire break. As it stands right now we are on a 1 hour fire evacuation notice the same as the Nordegg community.

 

Sitting here writing this blog I feel like I am at an airstrip with all the air traffic that is flying right over our house. Liam is fascinated by the helicopters that are filling up their buckets from our lake. He announces everyone he hears or see’s, which today is ever minute or so. Today they have five helicopters filling up in our lake and six to nine water bomber planes flying around but are filling up from Lake Abraham since our lake is not long enough for them to fill from.

 

It is kind of a surreal feeling having all this going on and we are running programs like normal. We are going on a holiday in a week and a half so I spent the majority of today packing for that, mostly because we are on evacuation notice and need to be ready to go if we are evacuated. I also packed a Rubbermaid full with things to come with us for example our passports and any money we have in the house, baby books for my kids, our wedding album and other things like that. It is amazing how little went into the Rubbermaid, we have a house full of things we collected in our life time and most of the important things we managed to fit into one Rubbermaid. I only packed the things that are not replaceable like the baby books with Joelle and Liam’s baby foot prints in them, small things but memories that money wouldn’t be able to get back for us. Toys, beds, furniture call all be replaced and I am thankful for insurance that would help us get some of those things back if the fire burned our house. This really makes me stop and think what is important in my life like my family I am blessed to have. Everything else is just things at the end of the day and can be replaced, but my family could never be replaced. I am thankful that God is in every situation with me and is giving me little moments in the chaos that make me smile and not think about the what ifs. I know that what ever happen we are going to be ok, even if we are evacuated we will be together and God will provide whatever we need if we lose the camp and our house.

A prayer request from this would be that no one would be hurt or die in this fire. That the fire fighters can get the fire under control and put out before it gets much bigger, it is about 100 hectors right now and spreading since it is still out of control. For the town of Nordegg, for those of you who don’t know much about the small hamlet it was once a booming coal community and has been previously devastated by fires that left not much for historic buildings. The little church we attend there was built in the 30’s and a handful of other buildings managed to escape the previous fires. Nordegg is a tourist attraction out here in the summer and if the historic parts of the community are devastated by the fire it is hard to say what it would do for the community.  For the fire fighters that they have safety and discernment while fighting the fire both from the air and on the ground.