So there is a fire burning in Waterton National Park in southwest Alberta. The Waterton townsite and park were evacuated last week. Last night the fire left the park to the east and some areas to the west of me, about 30km, are now evacuating. This is a photo taken from my front door this morning. The smoke is currently rising and blowing over my town which is actually a nice reprieve from the last few days when it was blowing through town. What the photo doesn't show is the eerie yellow/orange glow that is everywhere you look. IMG_20170912_101853 by Imasham posted Sep 12, 2017 at 10:35 My wife and I are preparing our evacuation bags in case we have to go.
Stay safe @Imasham. Smart to be ready in case you get the evacuation order. You will be ahead of the crowd. Just make sure to take pictures of everything in your home for insurance purposes.
Yes, and if there is a way to date stamp them, all the better. Keep out of the way of the fire and emergency vehicles, they can't see any better in smoke than you can.
Thank for the well wishes. All is OK here so far in town. I subscribe to a provincial government emergency alert app and it hasn't gone off at all today. It went off about six times during last night to announce various evacuation plans, etc. It kept waking me up but that is its purpose. My family circumstances are in good shape. We have a plan, we're ready to go, we're fully insured and we have a complete home inventory. All important photos and documents were previously scanned. The situation is presenting some holes in our plan however so we're learning how to get better as well. It was my daughter's first day of pre-school today and I took the photos below when I went outside. They show the ash that is falling in my yard and on my car. IMG_20170912_110729 by Imasham posted Sep 12, 2017 at 18:00 IMG_20170912_110742 by Imasham posted Sep 12, 2017 at 18:00
Praying for rain for you. IF you have to evac - soak the roof, plug the gutters and leave the hose on the roof running wide open. That's what one of my buddies did in Ft Mac.
If I did that my house might collapse! I have a flat roof with four gutter drains in each corner. The roof itself is a bowl so if I plugged the drains the bowl would fill and the weight of the water would not be a good thing! I had planned to put my sprinkler on the roof and leave it running but leave the drains open. Luckily though the situation appears resolved. The winds have changed, rain has come today and evacuations have started to be rescinded. It is a nice resolution and I feel blessed knowing that others around the continent have not been so fortunate. I greatly appreciate everyone's comments and thoughts. My wife and I plan to do a lessons learned review to go over the holes I mentioned we found in our processes.
