Recessional

[whipchick]

Fort McMurray is burning.

A wildfire rages at the edges of town. Right now. Right now my acquaintances are checking in on Facebook, I’m safe, I’m safe. Right now the fire has become a “crown fire,” the tops of conifers blazing, perverse Christmas trees blossoming with flames a hundred metres high, sparks crossing first the Athabasca River, then

Comments

[bleodswean]

Disasters, rightfully so, bring these sorts of contemplations to the surface of WesternCiv people. And I think your reaction is good. I think it's full of humanism, as is this entry. The fire is just insane. And terrible. And impossible to grasp in its entirety.

I've never heard this before - my borrowed tragedy - and I like it VERY MUCH!!!

[halfshellvenus]

I read a story about that area of Canada in "Outside," and how much destruction the oil sands mining was wreaking on the area-- much of which is reservation land or abuts it. The fire increases the injury caused to that whole area by oil mining.

That question of what you would take when you have to leave quickly and suddenly is the kind of thing you can help pondering-- if only because someday you might need to know. But it's so often the same priorities-- people, pets, photographs, and important mementos. Everything else can be replaced.

[millysdaughter]

Almost everyone is out-unlike Key West natives facing down hurricanes, Canadians politely leave when asked.
Yes. When we flooded -- 25% of our town was displaced for months, 11,000 people evacuated -- people elsewhere said "it could not have been that bad, because nobody was killed"
They did not die in the flood waters, because they followed orders to evacuate. Since they did not drown in flood waters, the deaths of displaced persons were not considered "related" to the flood...

[prog_schlock]

We have hurricanes and tsunami out here that occasionally require us to ponder evacuation and I know what I'd bring. My cats. Cat food. Kitty littler. Litter box. Basically, that's about all. If time and I could carry it, my laptop, but even that I could give up.

Its funny, I arrived here in Hawaii with two small boxes in 1989 and now feel like I need a storage unit to hold all my stuff. I think I could lose all of my stuff and feel more relief than agony.

As long as the cats, the wife and I are all ok.

I am so sorry for everything that is happening in Alberta. We'll be visiting Toronto and Vancouver this summer. I hope that fires are out soon and that people can start rebuilding their lives.

Oh, man, this is the song I thought of.

[murielle]

Yes, the area has been evacuated successfully. For that we can all be grateful. Even those who went north have been relocated to safety. There will be criticism for the way things were handled. There will be recriminations. There have even been those who have stated publicly that this devastation and displacement was deserved because McMurray was primarily an oil boom city.

Thanks so much for writing this piece. I get knots in my stomach over this, and over what will become of our province in light of it all.