It was May 1st, 2016, I was in Banff, Alberta with my wife, Eden and my brother. We had just finished three days of the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo and we're taking the Sunday to relax in Banff before driving home to Fort McMurray the next time day. It all started when my mother in law sent Eden and I a picture of a smoke plume taken from our front door. It was a cool picture, if I find it I will add it to this blog; the smoke covered the sun and turned it a deep crimson. With that cell phone picture my whole world changed.
Okay I'm going to pause the story here and give some context and general information on this tale which will be partly analysis, part biography, and part conjecture because this is the single most fascinating thing to happen in my life. Unfortunately I'm not the kind of person to write things as they happen or to keep a diary so I will be piecing some parts from memory, social media, news media, and any documentation I might have around. Anyways sorry for boring you with this let's get back to one of what I'm sure is many interesting tales of, survival from the biggest evacuation in Alberta history.
The picture combined with news reports of evacuation warnings coming from the city convinced my wife and I that we needed to head home straight away, even though it meant driving all night after three days of the Expo and a day walking around Banff. In my younger years I had done more on less, now pushing thirty I was having a harder time but I knew my wife needed to get home.
Phone calls from my sister proved more informative than my mother in law, what was home with my son, or any media sources. My sister told me she could see the flames across the highway where a permanent fifth wheel Park, a hotel, a Burger King, and a Shell/Flying J had already been emptied.
To quote my sister, "you always think you want to see it, but actually seeing it is fucking scary."
By the time we made it back to our hotel on the north side of Calgary, my Jeep Patriot now full of gas and a Mountain Dew energy drink for me, the evacuation of Gregoire had started. My wife’s best friend was headed to our house to get my son, mother-in-law, two dogs, and two cats. My fish was to be left behind, something trivial I know but I can get quite attached to my pets even, the not so cute ones.
As we quickly packed up our hotel room and checked early my concern grew and my wife began to panic, the thought of, being so far from her child in danger almost too much for her to bear. The Patriot loaded up, I waited for by wife to have a smoke in front of the hotel. At this time she was talking to her mother, my sister phoned me at the same time.
She lived nearby with her boyfriend and they had all evacuated already, but being my sister and knowing I wasn't home she wanted to check in on my family. As my sister packed up my family and pets, even the fish, Zombie. My wife, brother and I hit the QE2 and I prayed for a tail wind. We found a place for them all to stay in the fifth wheel of a good family friend.
With our family safe across town from the fires my wife and brother fell asleep before Red Deer, leaving me alone to think. I found it ironic that the apocalypse expert would be far away when the disaster finally came knocking, I would come to regret this thought over the coming days. Thankfully some asshat in a Mazda decided my headlights were too bright and followed me with his brights on until I finally cut my speed to 80 kmh and he was forced to pass. So I followed him for a few clicks with lights in his mirror because I'm nothing if not petty behind the wheel.
It was around midnight when I dropped my brother of at his home in Edmonton. Sometime between there and Grassland the mandatory evacuation was switched to voluntary which angered some people. At about 3 am my wife and I stopped in Wandering River, parking the Jeep in between a cube van and a flat deck tractor trailer, we slept there until 7 am when day two began.
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