“I kept thinking, my pets don’t even have a fighting chance because they’re in the house,” Blesse said.īut, she was able to get in touch with someone working fighting the fires, and asked them to let the dogs out and untether Mason. Mason, Blesse’s dad’s large dog, was also left tethered in the yard to avoid a scrap with neighbouring animals. She’s now in La Crête, another hamlet along the Peace River. When Blesse left, her dogs Betty and Butter, who is pregnant, were left inside the house. The evacuation, said Blesse, took some people several hours. They had to await a ride across the river on a barge, sometimes in their own vehicle or someone else’s, or on a bus. Residents of Fox Lake were unable to flee by road. Given that Fox Lake is so remote, the evacuation has been unlike the high-stakes flight from Fort McMurray in 2016, when people fleeing in trucks and other vehicles filmed and sometimes livestreamed as “The Beast” tore a path of destruction towards the city. “In my head I was thinking ‘Oh, I’ll just be gone for a day and I’ll be back tomorrow,'” said Blesse. When the call came to get in the truck and leave home, the family was under the impression they’d be put on a bus and taken from the community - it made sense, Blesse said, that they couldn’t have animals all over the bus. “(The fire) was pretty far from us, from where we live, but we could see all the smoke coming up and it was just getting worse by the minute,” said Blesse. Fox Lake has been her home her entire life, and in her memory, it has never had to be fully evacuated. Johnette Blesse was among those who had to leave her animals behind. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Manage Print Subscription / Tax Receipt.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |