Smoke, Schools, and Sudden Evacuation: Lessons from the 2008 Porters Lake Fire

When the 2008 Porters Lake–Lake Echo wildfire tore through the suburbs east of Halifax, more than 5,000 people were forced to flee with only minutes to decide what mattered most. In this episode, Paula Danyluk‑MacDonald - evacuee, mother, neighbour, and principal of Atlantic View Elementary - shares her firsthand account of sudden evacuation, community fear, and the remarkable resilience that followed.

Paula describes the moment firefighters knocked on her door with five minutes to leave, the frantic search for family, the overwhelming tension at the evacuation centre, and the emotional return home to a neighbourhood changed forever. She also reflects on how the school community coped in the weeks and months afterward, how children processed the disaster, and how neighbours became lifelines.

This is a story of community strength, compassion, and the quiet leadership that emerges when everything familiar is suddenly at risk.

Visit www.communicationspodcast.com for more detailed show info including photos and videos.

Transcript

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Speaker 1
Backed by wins over 100km an hour. The 2008 Porters Lake and Lake Echo wildfire raised nearly as fast across the landscape, loaded with fuel from hurricanes and beetle kill, until it was caught by the Atlantic Ocean and fire crews. It was Friday, June 13th, 2008, and within 30 hours it had burned through 2000 hectares of urban wildland rural suburbs of the provincial capital.

00;00;24;18 - 00;00;39;22
Speaker 1
It moved faster than any in recent history, tearing across an area loaded with homes and communities, resulting in immediate and at times terrifying tactical evacuations through thick smoke and wind. Here's incident Commander Mark's Wood describing what he saw on arrival

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Speaker 1
at a distance. This is one of the nastiest looking fires I have seen in my few decades as a responder from peninsular Halifax, where many community members commuted to daily, and where I worked, it looked like the entire city was on fire and burning at a rapid rate.

00;01;55;20 - 00;01;58;23
Speaker 1
It was visible to over a quarter million people and broadcast

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Speaker 1
across the country during a time when broadcast media was still dominant. Facebook and Twitter were viral, with audiences growing while governments were not tuned in. It was the first major evacuation in the province of Nova Scotia in decades, meaning people and responders were not primed and ready. Therefore, it was an emergency evacuation, with emergency education for both responders and community members.

00;02;22;27 - 00;02;43;16
Speaker 1
Around 5000 people were evacuated, including many students who had finished school for the day. Yet families were evacuated in the opposite direction before everyone got home. The routes around the fire were long, taking some people several hours. Often driving on roads they had never been on before. Parents who may have been at work in Halifax had to figure out where their family was and how to get to them.

00;02;43;23 - 00;03;05;05
Speaker 1
With some areas having limited or overwhelmed cell service during the evacuation. Luckily, only two homes were lost in the largest wildfire in Nova Scotia's history in over 44 years. Sadly, a year later, another fire in Springfield on the other side of Halifax took more homes, and since then, multiple larger and more destructive fires have caused widespread damage throughout the province.

00;03;05;05 - 00;03;33;05
Speaker 1
Just as I began as public information officer on this fire, I met Paula Danielle McDonald. She was a resident who nearly lost her home and was also principal of Atlantic View Elementary. And she gave me one of the best moments I've ever produced during an emergency. A crowd of thankful children. In May 2005, I went back to see Paula and another resident, Gary Stronach, whose home had the narrowest of escapes as his next door neighbors were the only two homes which burned down during this wildfire.

00;03;33;08 - 00;03;54;23
Speaker 1
You can hear Gary's story in an upcoming episode. Paula Danielle MacDonald wore multiple hats through the wildfire disaster. Evacuee. Wife. Friend. Mother. Principal of the elementary school. We stood in front of the evacuation center for this event, Coal Harbor Place, where she begins by describing the first moments of the wildfire on June 13th, 2008.

00;03;54;26 - 00;04;04;03
Unknown
You know, I'm sure we all have played anyone who was part of the fires probably played through so many times before, but I remember being in school because

00;04;04;07 - 00;04;13;00
Unknown
I taught or I was the principal at the elementary school just down the road, and I just remember the power winking out.

00;04;13;01 - 00;04;35;24
Unknown
Just as I was about to leave the school, I was like, oh, strange, someone must have hit a power line or something like that. And by the time I made it home, my phone started to ring. Was my sister and some other friends saying that the fire. It jumped the highway and I was like, okay, well, interesting. But you sometimes forget what the actual

00;04;35;28 - 00;04;39;22
Unknown
geography is and just how close that was when they when they announced that.

00;04;39;22 - 00;04;53;19
Unknown
And so my husband got home with my daughter from school and we started to hear more of this. And then the power winked out at our place and I was like, This also was interesting.

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Unknown
We acknowledge and respect the indigenous people on whose ancestral territories we work and play, whether the land is

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Unknown
unceded or ceded. Your relationship with this land and your culture is one we admire. Wherever we are, we are committed to truth and reconciliation

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Unknown
through regular,

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Unknown
meaningful

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Unknown
actions.

00;05;11;14 - 00;05;20;22
Unknown
So then we were kind of checking with media to see what was happening. And I said, said to my husband, I said, you know what?

00;05;20;25 - 00;05;35;17
Unknown
This is really close. Maybe we should think about, you know, packing a few bags or having some things ready to go. And I didn't get the words out of my mouth. And someone arrived at the door, and it was one of the firefighters saying, you really have five minutes to get out of your house.

00;05;35;17 - 00;05;36;29
Speaker 3
Evacuation at this time.

00;05;37;05 - 00;05;40;01
Speaker 4
We have to start packing. Personal belongings, including clothing.

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Unknown
And so we frantically were trying to think, okay, what do you take when you have five minutes to get out of your house? So we managed to get some clothes together. Any important papers, photo albums, you know, anything that we thought that would be pertinent that would be harder to replace? And my husband and I are both musicians.

00;06;00;16 - 00;06;23;18
Unknown
I was like, let's get. He said, it'll burn. It'll it'll go like we can replace that. So away we went in, in our cars. And as we were just before we got in the car, we then looked behind the house and there was a huge wall of smoke and we're like, oh, we really do have five minutes to get out of the house.

00;06;23;20 - 00;06;45;04
Unknown
And so and it was all I could think of at that point was how much the wind was blowing on me. At that point, it really hadn't registered to me about just what the wind was going to do that day. So we started to drive away. We were going to my sister's place. My husband said, I can't drive away and not know what's going on.

00;06;45;04 - 00;07;01;06
Unknown
So right across from our house, there's a there was a Boy Scout camp. And so he went like on the other side of the lake and he and a bunch of neighbors, that's where they were. They were. And they were watching the fire. I went to my sister's place. And so waiting for that communication as to what was happening.

00;07;01;06 - 00;07;27;00
Unknown
And so he would give me a call every half hour, tell me what was happening. And we were watching it on the on television, which was really insane because I could see, you know, from, from that angle what actually was happening. And I remember him calling at around 7:00 and saying, they're talking about pulling the firefighters out is so dangerous there.

00;07;27;00 - 00;07;55;18
Unknown
And then he said, there's a wall of smoke. Our house is going to be gone. Paula. And I was like, okay. My sister went to give me a hug and I said, please don't hug me or I will fall apart right now, you know? And so anyway, he called. An hour later, the wind had shifted just enough so that the wall of smoke had backed off, and he said, our house is still there, he said, but there's fire burning on all sides of the house.

00;07;55;18 - 00;08;16;13
Unknown
And I was like, so the wind had started to die down. But the wind then started to shift more, and it kind of it was almost like it was coming towards the house and then just veered just enough. So yeah, I don't think either one of us got any sleep that night. He got home. He got to my sister's place at around 930, and then it was just the updates from then, right?

00;08;16;13 - 00;08;38;14
Unknown
Yeah, I couldn't sleep, so I got up at the crack of dawn and drove down the road because I was thinking, okay, my house probably isn't there. Maybe. Maybe isn't there right now. But I wanted to see if the school was still there. But they wouldn't let let us down. So, you know, I had gotten teary of thinking about, oh my God, the school is gone.

00;08;38;15 - 00;08;58;20
Unknown
Like. And so that's what I said to the to the to the first responders. Just tell me the school is there. And he said the school is there. I said, thank you very much. And I remember like afterwards, the story, you know, when we were at Coal Harbor Place getting the updates, we didn't stay there the whole time.

00;08;58;20 - 00;09;21;27
Unknown
It's quite a quite a tense place to be when, when community members. And it's a good place because everybody gets to talk and yeah, you know, mental health wise that's a very important thing. But there's only so much like people handle things in different ways. So, you know, we were there sometimes just when they would tell us when the next update and when the next update was coming so that we would know.

00;09;21;27 - 00;09;39;07
Unknown
So the morning that they were saying they were opening the roads back up again, what they did is they said, we have a bus and we're going to take the people who had damage to their homes. We're going to take them first. And so we're like, we want to see. But I hope they don't call us, you know.

00;09;39;08 - 00;09;57;15
Unknown
So it was that feeling, you know, please let us see. But please don't call our name. And when our name didn't get called, it was like a wash of relief. And then I'm watching all of my neighbors file out, and my heart was bleeding for every single one, like, oh my God, I wonder how bad things were. And then.

00;09;57;15 - 00;10;21;14
Unknown
So when we finally got a chance to get on on the road and were driving up, it was just the weirdest feeling when you just see like just how close everything was and where the fires were. And, you know, there were still hoses that were still running up the roads. Yeah, we got to our place and like the whole everything, like all the anything that was in the back of the house was gone.

00;10;21;15 - 00;10;42;04
Unknown
We saw like where there had been hotspots burning on one side. And when we have a, we have firewood that's stacked by the side of the house. And we noticed that it had the fire literally burned and came down, and we saw it kind of all pushed to the side. And then we realized the firefighters had actually done that.

00;10;42;04 - 00;11;05;00
Unknown
So it would stop some like, yeah, like a firewall to stop that from happening any further. And we noticed that all of the wires were down because they had come and taken them down. And then we noticed, like our propane tank was in the middle of the lawn. And we said, you know, I was like, but then we found out afterwards what, what had actually what the firefighters had actually done to try to save all the properties.

00;11;05;00 - 00;11;33;02
Unknown
And I that's another thing. I can't say enough how tremendous the firefighters were and how tremendous the the first responders they were. So they worked so hard and they spoke to community members so compassionately. It was wonderful to see. And so we started to hear some of the stories. So thank you to all of the firefighters and first responders.

00;11;33;04 - 00;11;59;14
Unknown
They saved our community. It was afterwards we started to hear some of the stories. Everybody. The next day, everybody was walking around seeing what was happening, the damage. And I remember the hoses were still down the road and one of the firefighters was on the road and he said, yeah. He said when they pulled herself, when it was too dangerous for us to be there anymore, we couldn't see.

00;11;59;14 - 00;12;30;07
Unknown
So we were literally on our hands and knees following the hose out because we couldn't make it back, because it was because the, you know, the the smoke was so thick and I was like, and they had left them there just in case there were other hotspots and other things that would that would pop up. So it was it was pretty surreal when we went, when we when we saw her thing and the interesting thing before we left the house, I said to my husband, let's just make sure that all the windows are down and locked.

00;12;30;07 - 00;12;48;24
Unknown
Well, yeah. And he said, I said, well, who knows? You know, like if if there's something that's open, it's enough of a backdraft. Who knows that it could get into the house, like just put the barrier there. When we came home and we opened the door, Kevin, who was my husband as a teacher, one of his students had given him some coconut cookies.

00;12;48;26 - 00;13;17;23
Unknown
Okay. When we walked into the house, all you could smell were these was the smell of coconut. And I was like, it's almost like those cookies baked twice because of the heat. Yeah, yeah. You know, so we were extremely lucky. We had no damage at all. Again, like I said, some of our neighbors not so lucky. Yeah. And something I learned is that bark mulch will will actually catch fire with heath.

00;13;17;23 - 00;13;41;28
Unknown
Not necessarily with, with the actual fire. So when we were walking, we noticed that there was like nothing happening. Like the homes were totally fine. And then in the very front lawn we would see scorch marks. But it's where they had all of the where they had the bark mulch. And some of our neighbors actually had damage to their house because the bark mulch right next to their homes had spontaneously combusted.

00;13;42;03 - 00;14;08;21
Unknown
And that's what actually caused some of their fire damage. So yeah, very, very different when we got home. But, you know, I have to say something about neighbors. Humans are resilient. Very humans are very resilient. And it's amazing how much a community will band together and work together to help each other out, even if it's not someone you know really well.

00;14;08;24 - 00;14;26;01
Unknown
But the community banded together and were just incredible to each other, and I think those are the types of things that help people get through situations like this, you know? So yeah, it was it was an interesting few days for sure.

00;14;26;04 - 00;15;57;21
Unknown
Ooh!

00;15;57;24 - 00;16;17;14
Unknown
if can you remember anything about the communications that you haven't mentioned already during the, during and after the wildfire? Like, is there are things that kind of pop out to you? Yeah, I, I think the biggest thing was that it's I think they did the best they could with the information at the time.

00;16;17;16 - 00;16;37;13
Unknown
I think that, you know, between call Harbor Place here and, you know, it's just some of the updates that way. I think they did the best they could at the time. I don't think that it was something that they were used to having in communities around here. So I think it was almost a learn as you go, even though they have their own protocols together.

00;16;37;15 - 00;17;00;22
Unknown
But I'm sure that there's many things that have been learned since then. Most of what we got actually came from television and the radio, because that seemed to hit before anything else did. So, you know, we were glued to the radio, glued to the television as much as we could. But I think, I mean, we have much time has passed since then.

00;17;00;22 - 00;17;30;18
Unknown
So, you know, now we have alerts on our phones and we have different things that different ways of communicating very quickly that we didn't necessarily have then. So I think that the communication would have been more fast and furious, you know, all these years later. But like I said, I think that considering, you know, the time and again, the fact that this is not something that has happened in a, you know, in a community like this, I think they did the best they could.

00;17;30;21 - 00;17;35;28
Unknown
So I can't complain too much about that. Again,

00;17;36;00 - 00;17;51;19
Unknown
people were stepping up to the plate to do the best that they could, best that they could. Yeah. And I'll say like, I, you know, my memory of things was the how the communications kind of came together was a full community effort. Oh yeah. Because it was people were sharing information.

00;17;51;19 - 00;18;17;16
Unknown
But the radio stations and television stations, as you mentioned, was still very much the dominant media at the time. And, and they really they stopped everything and put every effort into making sure that they get information out to people. And and being that conduit between the responders and, and the community. So. Well, the one good thing about. Yeah, the one good thing about that is that we we knew that the information that was coming was the most accurate information.

00;18;17;16 - 00;18;39;21
Unknown
So whatever they had was the most accurate information. I think that if that had happened now, I mean, again, I think we would have gotten information fast and furious. But, you know, we would have people would have been tweeting out and texting and other pieces, but I don't know how accurate that would have been. So, you know, there's there's a there's a balance between the two.

00;18;39;23 - 00;19;07;28
Unknown
Certainly. And that was that was the first incident I had where there was such a great amount of misinformation passing around. Yeah, it really was. And I think it would be even more now. Like I think, you know, for some communities that have been ravaged by fire or have had an incident like this, I think it's it's a little harder now to tease out what's fact and what is fiction, or a perspective that doesn't really have any fact behind it.

00;19;07;28 - 00;19;11;05
Unknown
So again, a balance, right? Yeah, absolutely.

00;19;11;05 - 00;19;38;06
Unknown
So did you ever think there's something that hey, I wish they told me this. Anything come to mind that back then that you're like, geez, I wish I knew that back then. Oh well, I think the first thing that would have come to my that comes to me and it seems like a very trivial one, but when they tell you to get out of the house and you take things, they didn't tell us, you're not coming back.

00;19;38;09 - 00;19;57;09
Unknown
So when you leave your house, I mean, it was like, oh, I, you know, I've got to, I've got to think about this. But and I actually at one point we turned around and they were like, no, I'm like, oh my God, we're now locked out. This is it. So, you know, I, I think that in that situation, again, we were only given five minutes.

00;19;57;11 - 00;20;18;00
Unknown
I mean, it was moving fast. Yeah. But I wish someone had said, take what you need. You're not coming back until we let you. And so I in because in my head I was thinking, oh, I'll just come back to get something I wasn't. Because when you're hit with that, your emotions come up. So your rational thought goes down and you're not rationally thinking through that.

00;20;18;00 - 00;20;40;13
Unknown
So I know that seems like a trivial thing, but that was a piece, I think, and I don't know if there's anything during that time, but I think I've learned a lot after the fact. So number one, when they tell you there's there's a chance you're going to be evacuated, take it seriously. Don't think it's going to be someone else.

00;20;40;14 - 00;21;03;14
Unknown
You have to get things ready right away. I think that was like the biggest thing. And I think that that still kind of plays out when I hear other things now. So and I know that there are other community members of the same way, that if they say there's a storm coming or there's a fire or there's a potential, people don't kind of go, oh, well, yeah, they take it seriously.

00;21;03;14 - 00;21;25;02
Unknown
And you watch people in the community just start taking care of things immediately. So I think that when we get warnings of bad weather or a natural disaster or whatever, I think that when you've gone through it, you actually go, okay, and you don't, you just don't argue with it. Even if it might be over cautious. You just do it.

00;21;25;03 - 00;21;47;09
Unknown
Yeah. Right. Yeah. And I think the other thing is to is that I think if we were if someone were to make that same call today, there's a good chance that we would have done some other things or would have taken different things that maybe we didn't take with us or, you know, have some other contingency plans for, you know, important things that you need to get.

00;21;47;11 - 00;22;14;20
Unknown
One of our neighbors whose house burned, he had been in the forces. And so he said, things don't matter. It's not the things. Yeah, but there were the things that held the memories. So he had like medals and papers like that and that those are irreplaceable. So you take the stuff that's irreplaceable. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And it's, it's that it is a tough thing to do in that moment.

00;22;14;21 - 00;22;32;03
Unknown
Yes. You want to remember the things that you want to need to remember, but you have to really kind of do pick the things that are the most important things in our irreplaceable. Right. So, well, those are the things. Yeah. And it's you know, but biggest thing is, is life safety getting people out. Right. And that that's that's really important.

00;22;32;03 - 00;22;32;21
Unknown
So

00;22;32;26 - 00;22;57;04
Unknown
I want to pick up on that a little bit. Your experience as an administrator at a school, you were at an elementary school. And what was the what do you remember about the the the staff and the children after? Like what was their reaction in that, you know, months and weeks afterwards? Yeah. So some so I was actually Echo Harbor Place with some of the families.

00;22;57;07 - 00;23;31;20
Unknown
And you know, it's quite emotional. And so all I could think of is I had to mental eyes things a little bit, and I had to take how I was feeling and say, okay, you've got time for that. But right now there are other people around you that see, was a as a leader, like a school leader. And and so I, you know, I was I don't even know how that happened, but I literally compartmentalized how I was feeling so that other people had a chance to talk and to decompress and, you know, to have that connection with other people.

00;23;31;21 - 00;23;55;29
Unknown
Again, that was one of the biggest things about the community center is it gave people who needed who needed to feel that connection with other people. It gave them the opportunity to do that, which I think sometimes people don't think about until afterwards, like what that was like. So when we were all able to get back into the building together.

00;23;56;01 - 00;24;18;01
Unknown
The curriculum came second because we needed like the teachers and the staff and the children and family members who came in, you know, to pick up the children or, you know, drop them off. They needed to talk. So we had to give them the opportunity to talk. And that was the biggest thing. We had people at the regional center who were ready to be on call.

00;24;18;01 - 00;24;41;22
Unknown
If we needed extra people in the building or counselors that we could draw from other schools to come in. So there was the opportunity for anyone who needed that decompression or to talk or to, you know, do what they needed to do for their own mental health. Yeah. You know, and I think that the good thing about coming back to school was, is that for many of the kids and for the families, it was a sense of normalcy.

00;24;41;24 - 00;25;01;24
Unknown
Yeah. So that was a really that getting back into a routine or things as, as they were. I think that was the biggest thing, you know. So I'm glad that the school opened up as quickly as it did afterwards, so that families did and staff did have that opportunity, and we just gave room for it when it was needed.

00;25;01;24 - 00;25;26;10
Unknown
Yeah. What was interesting is that, well, after the fact, when we're talking months later, there would be a story or something in the media about some natural disaster or whatever. And I never it never occurred to me until afterwards that when the community heard about that, it was almost like a trigger. And so there was a different tension.

00;25;26;10 - 00;25;55;20
Unknown
You could feel a little bit of attention in the building that wasn't there. It was like, what's happening? Oh, this is this is triggering other things. So you give people the opportunity. Again, curriculum goes aside because the mental health and well-being of, of, of the people in your building are what's most important. So for another couple of days, we did different types of community building or assembly activities together with the students, and no one realized we were doing that.

00;25;55;21 - 00;26;19;16
Unknown
Yeah, great. And I didn't bring it up like I really didn't bring it up. I didn't talk to anyone about what I was doing because if I brought it up, then it might have caused a whole other set of triggers. So I just, you know what? We're going to do things take a, take a mental break from things and just do things together as a school, as a school community.

00;26;19;18 - 00;26;41;29
Unknown
And I did that for a couple of days until you could feel the tension of what was happening in the news, come back down again. So that was very interesting to me, and I realized how important it is to really, although I knew before, but it really brought home how important it is to just make sure with those relationships that you're you're looking for changes in behavior or because behavior is communication.

00;26;42;01 - 00;26;58;06
Unknown
So when you see that change, you shift to do what you need to do for the well-being of the of the people that are around you. So yeah, and it's part of that healing process. And just as, just like anyone, the children need that opportunity to heal as well from that incident and what they went through and their experience.

00;26;58;08 - 00;27;17;15
Unknown
Yeah, because a lot of times they can't they can't express verbally what's happening to them. I mean, some kids can and sometimes things could be happening to you and you don't even realize that you've been triggered because anyone who's going through any kind of an emotional state, they're the last ones to realize that they're going through an emotional state.

00;27;17;16 - 00;27;42;05
Unknown
That's right. Right. Because again, between like, you know, your rational font and your emotions, once the emotions start to go up, your rational thought goes down. Yeah. So, you know, giving people the opportunity to have those moments, I think is extremely important and to really watch their behaviors. And like I said, when I could see that there was something something is not right here.

00;27;42;05 - 00;28;03;09
Unknown
Yeah. You know, I was paying attention to behaviors because again, little sometimes, well, doesn't even have to be little people. Big people too can be going through things and not even realize it. Right. So yeah. Yeah, it was interesting. And people do things in different ways. Some people need hugs, some people need to talk it out. Some people need time.

00;28;03;11 - 00;28;17;29
Unknown
You know, they need some space. Like I said, my sister who went to give me a hug, who thought she was doing the right thing for me, I just please don't just don't right now because I will fall apart

00;28;18;02 - 00;28;40;10
Unknown
Mental well-being is something we all have a responsibility to ourselves to be aware of and to look for ways to improve through intentional actions, such as getting outside or seeking professional help. As a responder, consider taking mental health first aid, which has been very important for the work I do. Interacting with people during large emergencies from residents to responders.

00;28;40;10 - 00;29;00;07
Unknown
If you are an urgent need of help in Canada, dial or text 988. You deserve to be heard. They are there to listen. It is a safe spot to talk 24 hours a day, every day of the year. Now for a moment with Dreadful Bird, who you will find on most platforms.

00;29;00;10 - 00;29;35;29
Unknown
So and I'm sure you've relived the experience many times. What would you suggest to anyone that experience this such a sudden event in evacuation. Is there anything else that comes to mind? I think the biggest thing is being able to accept that you're going through something, except that that you that that things aren't okay, and then look for those opportunities to help get yourself back into balance or to do what you need to do for, for, for your own wellness.

00;29;35;29 - 00;29;58;04
Unknown
So again, for some people, you need to talk it out. I'm I'm that I need to talk things out person. There are other people that just need space. And if those are the people who need to give them the space, you know, other people might need to, you know, they may need to be more physically active. Maybe they need to go talk to a counselor, maybe they need.

00;29;58;05 - 00;30;21;15
Unknown
So whatever it is that works for you. Journaling. For some people, journaling is a big thing. Whatever it takes for you to be able to get yourself back in balance, I think is perfectly acceptable in whatever form that is. So know yourself beforehand. Take the opportunity to be to be kind to yourself and to be kind to the people around you as well.

00;30;21;15 - 00;30;42;15
Unknown
So that's the other thing. Like sometimes again, behavior is communication. So something when you know that, then you can respond accordingly to what someone else's behavior might be that may be different than your own and say, that's okay. They're not responding the same as I am. That's okay. They're just doing it in a different way. And you give space for that.

00;30;42;16 - 00;31;04;10
Unknown
Yeah, yeah, that's that's a great piece of advice. And and just yeah. That you, you pick up on the fact that that everyone goes through it differently and it's different from moment to moment and recognizing that shifting that's happening and, and yeah, you do need to start to look at what you need to do as an individual right away.

00;31;04;10 - 00;31;22;22
Unknown
And I would suggest for people that are if you are ever evacuated or, you know, this incident is really close by, look at it on a, on a daily, even hourly basis when you're in the middle. What am I doing right now to protect my mental well-being and and and keep things going. So yeah. Yeah. And that's a wonderful advice.

00;31;22;23 - 00;31;46;09
Unknown
Well and again you may have a, you may think that you've gone through everything is fine. And then all it'll take is like like you hear about something or a smell or a sound or a song or whatever those pieces are, and that can bring everything back again. And that's okay. Yep. That's okay. If if that comes back again, fine.

00;31;46;10 - 00;32;02;22
Unknown
Recognize it for what it is, except that that's what it is. And then do what you need to do for your own mental health. Right? Absolutely. And for the people around you as well. I call them friends. They come back for a visit every once in a while. Every friend. Yes. Hello, friend. Nice to see you. Yeah. Don't stay long.

00;32;02;24 - 00;32;05;04
Unknown
Don't stay long. That's right.

00;32;05;07 - 00;32;39;09
Unknown
So, experiencing a wildfire. It impacts your home, your community, your friends. It can obviously be traumatic. We've talked a fair bit about that here today. Did. How did the wildfire affect your mental well-being and in the years after. Can you tell me what that was like and how that kind of impacted you? Yeah, I think again, I, I'm very I think that I'm very lucky in the fact that sometimes triggers will happen and you go and go, oh my, why am I acting like this?

00;32;39;15 - 00;33;07;28
Unknown
Why am I feeling this way? Why am I impatient all of a sudden in this situation? And so I think whenever you have a traumatic experience, being able to take a step back, breathe for a second, just breathe and be able to see. So every now and then, and not just for the fire, but for any type of of anything that could be traumatic for you, whether it's the death of a loved one or another incident that might have happened.

00;33;08;01 - 00;33;27;04
Unknown
I think that if you're able to recognize things for yourself, it just helps you go, oh, I'm feeling this way for a reason. Again, the other thing is, though, I have to tell you, I find that I get a little bit more tense in an action mode when I hear there's a storm coming. This is happening, this is happening.

00;33;27;04 - 00;33;43;29
Unknown
I don't mess around where I would have kind of before been a little bit more. Okay, we'll just now it's like I'm immediately in action mode a lot faster than anybody else in my family right now. And, you know, my husband will say, what are you doing? I'm saying, well, this is happening, so we've got to get this in.

00;33;44;00 - 00;34;07;23
Unknown
We've got to make this. So I immediately go into that action and do mode, because we all want to have control over over our environment. We want to have control of our lives. We want to feel that control. And when I know when I hear that there's something that's beyond my control that's about to happen. I try to control as much as I can around me, that proactive piece so that I can go, okay.

00;34;07;24 - 00;34;31;09
Unknown
At least I did everything I could to kind of mitigate what might come around the corner. So I think since, you know, we've also had some large storms out this way as well. So between that and the fire, I immediately I noticed that about myself more than anything else. I immediately go into. I can't control what's going to happen, but I can control what I can do right now to mitigate this.

00;34;31;09 - 00;34;33;09
Unknown
And I go into action mode.

00;34;33;11 - 00;34;47;23
Unknown
you know, I'm laughing at myself for this. But at the same time, it's not a bad thing that I'm actually doing this at the same time as well. So yeah, there's there's the balance between the, the that your friend who comes to visit that tells you what to do.

00;34;47;24 - 00;35;42;09
Unknown
Right. Yeah.

00;35;42;12 - 00;36;28;09



00;36;28;11 - 00;36;34;09
Unknown
What did you do to rebuild your mental wellbeing in those years after? Was there anything intentional that you started to do?

00;36;34;10 - 00;37;00;18
Unknown
Or do you know of anything that you were doing? Like you talked about the school and things you do there? That was wonderful. Anything else? I think I think one of the biggest things that happened afterwards was just making sure that I had connection with community members. I think I did that more after the fact because, no, no, nobody can do it by themselves.

00;37;00;18 - 00;37;26;25
Unknown
And, you know, I always talk to staff members or anywhere. We all need the ABCs accepted, belong and connected. And so I think after the fact, I think that was something that really meant a lot to me, was to make sure that you have connection with other people around you. So I think I don't know if I intentionally did it, but I knew afterwards I had a different connection with some with, you know, people on the street.

00;37;27;02 - 00;37;46;16
Unknown
And even if I'm not, you don't have to be close to them. It's not like, you know, we're we're over having tea every Sunday, but it's good to know the people around you so that just again, you've got those ABCs, the accept of belonging connected. So I think I did that. I think whether that was intentional or not, I know that that happened afterwards.

00;37;46;17 - 00;37;48;23
Unknown
Yeah. Yeah. No that's great. And

00;37;48;25 - 00;38;14;07
Unknown
is there anything that you like as you think back and you think about the, the event and your back. Is there anything you wish you'd known about it in that recovery period in the afterwards that they didn't know I guess back then? Well, that's a good question. I would think that again, hindsight is 2020.

00;38;14;08 - 00;38;53;18
Unknown
Yeah. And I think that having the like some education. I know okay I'm in the education field. But I think some some very directed education around some pieces around what kind of things happen. You know, what things look like. I mean, even my understanding of fire is a totally different thing now because we think of fire like almost like a controlled field burn where you watch it inch this way and then you realize in this situation it's not it's not like it's they're like frogs hopping over each other.

00;38;53;23 - 00;39;32;28
Unknown
So it hops, it jumps. And you don't think of fire that way. So even knowing like, like information like that or what kinds of things you need to do in a situation like that. I mean, those are the types of things that I think I think afterwards. It's like all the things I learned, like, don't put mulch next to your house, which we didn't, you know, don't have trees that are over line on, you know, close to your house or, you know, disconnect and, you know, make sure that you don't have flammable objects that are going to be right around your house or like, you know, even like paint cans or whatever.

00;39;33;01 - 00;39;55;21
Unknown
Not like those are the types of things that I really didn't know about until afterwards. So I think, like, you know, the opportunities for some education around those, those pieces. I think that would have been interesting to have. Yeah. Yeah. Great. And it's yeah, all wonderful information.

00;39;55;26 - 00;40;16;23
Unknown
It's been great to reconnect with you after all these years. It's been I obviously remember you and the experience with you and the kids because we one of the things that happened when I was working with that event was the I had to to, you know, kind of capture what was going on in the community.

00;40;16;25 - 00;40;34;29
Unknown
And I was taking that back to the operations, emergency operations and, you know, informing them what, what, what the field was in the community. And, and I remember going by the school and the kids were just amazing. They were just, you know, it was like everybody else was kind of like reeling and tough. It was it was tough event.

00;40;34;29 - 00;40;49;05
Unknown
And and the kids were just amazing. They were just these little balls of energy that were were more energized to thank everybody than the community was, which was amazing.

00;40;49;06 - 00;40;50;18
Unknown
And so we captured that.

00;40;50;18 - 00;40;59;29



00;40;59;29 - 00;41;15;03
Unknown
that. The thing about kids is that they they don't forget how to have joy in their lives. Yeah. And so they take those opportunities so children, children can be although very traumatic. They can be very resilient.

00;41;15;09 - 00;41;42;18
Unknown
And where we adults kind of take a more tentative approach, they just know and they're freer with it. I think we all could learn a little bit of we could learn a little bit from kids and how they handle things and how they go about things, because they are absolute joy. I was in the education field for as long as I have because, you know, kids, they also put things into perspective in a different way where we get into our heads.

00;41;42;18 - 00;42;01;16
Unknown
The older we get, the more into our heads we get with the feeling of responsibilities. But kids, they manage to take it for what it is at that moment, and then they live in the moment. So if the moment is a joyous moment, they take that moment to be joyous. And that's what's so wonderful about about kids. Yeah.

00;42;01;18 - 00;42;10;23
Unknown
They're amazing humans. Yeah. That's wonderful. Well, thank you so much. It's great to be here. And thank you for joining us on the podcast. Thanks so much. Glad to be here. Thanks.

00;42;10;26 - 00;42;25;26
Unknown
responsibilities. But kids, they manage to take it for what it is at that moment, and then they live in the moment. So if the moment is a joyous moment, they take that moment to be joyous. And that's what's so wonderful about about kids. Yeah.

00;42;25;28 - 00;42;27;15
Unknown
They're amazing humans.

00;42;27;18 - 00;44;14;26
Unknown
Ooh!

00;44;14;29 - 00;45;17;25
Unknown
Ooh!

00;45;17;27 - 00;45;23;26
Unknown
Put your hands are a little cold. Yeah, but I'm not though, so that's all. That's good. Very warm heart.