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It's the evening of May the 2nd. This time last year, I couldn't sleep, because it was unseasonably hot - around 20C. There was smoke blowing in from a nearby forest fire, and it was so thick that you could smell it even when you were indoors.

The next afternoon, my city was smothered in smoke and fire, and everyone in Fort McMurray - over 80,000 people - was evacuating.

If you look at a map, it becomes a little clearer why getting everyone out was such an amazing feat, and why it's a miracle that of everyone who left, only two people died in traffic, and nobody was directly killed by the fire.

We're in the middle of an enormous forest. There are no other cities. There are no other towns. There is only one road - and aside from a bit of road leading to the oil plants and to Fort McKay, it only goes in one direction: south. The few small settlements north of us, many of which were once trading posts, can only be reached by air and water.

If you leave Fort McMurray and travel down Highway 63, the next place that you can buy gasoline is about 200 kilometres away. The road doesn't branch until after roughly 250 kilometres.

It took until July 5th to get the Beast under control, and by that time it had burned over 5,900 square kilometres. For reference, this is over twice the size of Hong Kong.

I'm putting this into numbers because it's easier to process than the things that I saw that day. There were ashes falling from the sky. As we left work to run to our homes, my coworkers asked me, "Yuu, is this normal? Has it been like this before?" They were looking at me for reassurance because I know this place, I was born here, I know how our forest fires work, and I couldn't do anything to reassure them, because this wasn't normal. The smoke was so thick that it blocked out the sun.

On our side of the city, we thought the river would protect us, but the fire jumped across the Athabasca as if it wasn't even there. The radio kept playing an evacuation announcement between songs, along with the notice "This radio station is unmanned. Do not call the station seeking assistance." Before we locked up the house and left I said a spell for protection against forest fire. When we drove through downtown there was fire on both sides of us. The trees were so hot that some of them were exploding. Abasand and Waterways and Beacon Hill were burning.

As we left the city, we were stopped and instructed to drive on the wrong side of the twinned highway - the northbound side, even though we were going south. They needed to send people down both parts of the highway in order to get everyone out. "Keep to the right side of the lane," the traffic officer said. "Help is coming up from Edmonton on the left."

Edmonton is five hours away.

That was last year. This is this year. I'm alive. My home didn't burn down. The forest is coming back. The burnt trees are everywhere, all you have to do is look, and you'll see it. If I look out my office window, I can see the bare burnt edges of the river valley. But when spring comes properly, there'll be a thick carpet of green and purple. It isn't here yet; Winter hasn't gone to sleep yet - the river broke on April 25th, and there are still thick chunks of ice along the bank.

I'll be fine. I'm still not okay, not really. The sound of emergency vehicle sirens, or the scent of smoke - and I've been smelling a lot of smoke lately, the city is still doing controlled burning in the Birchwood - it still makes me panic.

But I'll be okay eventually. It's just going to take some time.

Ahaha. It's been a few months since I last saw someone saying that the wildfires were God's punishment for - insert laundry list of bullshit here, including drugs and prostitution and who knows what else. I didn't read the whole thing, though funnily enough, this one didn't mention climate change.

( Continued )

☆ Football: Man, that Switzerland-Poland game was SO not worth getting up at 7 AM for, pffft. But I got a lot of knitting done, so that's all right. ;p The Copa America match this evening was a lot more interesting (no surprise there, as it was the third place game, but still). Thank you, USA and Colombia, for keeping things interesting enough for me to at least pay attention. Going to be interesting to see who wins the final tomorrow. (GO CHILE GO! ...When in doubt, cheer for the country your friends live in, I always say. ;p) ...Damn, it starts during suppertime, hopefully I won't miss too much of it. :Va

☆ So, Stanley Barkman arrived in town today. He's the guy who walked over 2000 km to raise money to help people affected by the wildfire here in Fort McMurray. What a guy. That's some real awesome, right there. (At the time of this post, his crowdfunding page is still accepting donations.) Tomorrow, there's some kind of welcome ceremony for him down by city hall, and I'm going to try to go. It'll probably be busy, and crowds set off my anxiety something awful, but... I really want to go to this. The plaza it's to be held in is right outside my favourite cafe, so I'm pretty sure that if I go down there, and get a seat outside, I'll probably be able to hear everything pretty well, though I'm not sure what the view will be like. Apparently there's supposed to be a drumming circle and such too, and that sounds pretty cool to me.

☆ Note to self: buy Mari Boine's Idjagiedas album as soon as you have the spare cash on hand. You've already listened to pretty much every track already; time to admit that it's Just That Awesome. The title track, "Idjagiedas/In the hand of the night" is especially good - and it sounds awesome live, too (the song proper starts at about 1:30). Fff, part of the problem with getting into her music is that she has been putting out music for quite a while, so there are a lot of albums - it's a question of "Where the heck do I start?" But this one, I like everything I've heard of it, sooo... yes. <3

Ugh....

I got zero sleep last night. Zero.

It was hot out, which makes it hard to sleep even under normal circumstances. But it kept reminding me of the night before we had to leave, when it was so incredibly hot, and I couldn't sleep, and I kept smelling smoke even though the windows were closed. And then I kept thinking about the day we left. Not exactly conductive to anything, let alone sleep.

Tried to sleep a couple times, but I couldn't manage it, so I said "fuck it" and just... read an entire Mercedes Lackey novel all in one go. Magic's Promise. Fun stuff. Oh, Vanyel. <3 Oh, Savil. <3

...Anyway. By the time I finished, it was around 4 AM, and starting to get light out.

And then I started smelling smoke.

Fuck.

Most likely cause: blowing from the forest fire which is still burning, but mostly under control, like it always does in summer.

But that doesn't make me feel any better.

This weekend, my parents are going down to Athabasca for a while. My brother's going to be in Edmonton. I'm going to be up here looking after the dogs.

To be honest, even though it's very unlikely that we would have a second evacuation scenario, the thought of staying up here alone makes me kind of uncomfortable. I don't want to go to Athabasca, but I still feel kind of... scared of being alone up here, because what if. Enough that I find myself hoping that my parents will drive down with my father's truck, and leave my mother's car here, because I know how to drive her car. Well - okay. I can't legally drive without supervision. But I am capable of getting it from point A to point B in an emergency situation. I think. If I make sure to kennel the dogs in the back rather than letting them sit loose while I drive.

Jesus Christ, I can't believe I'm thinking about this.

...Well. My parents are leaving on Friday, I think. So, maybe I should look at the conditions on Thursday, and make my decisions then. Maybe I'll be less scared on a day when I haven't been up all night. :T

I'M HOME, I'M HOME, I'M HOME!

We have internet! We have power! We... don't have gas yet, but somebody will come by to turn it back on soon. AHA we have gas now, hooray!

The power never went out! Which means cleaning out the appliances was a breeze. We can return to almost-normal, hooray!

Downside is, my brother lost power, and his basement was flooded - we're still not sure why, but suspect that the storm water sewers were backed up due to all the water use in town. Okay, it turns out his hot water heater broke, and has to be replaced. All that carpet and whatnot is going to need to be completely ripped out, eugh. But, that's something for the insurance and his landlord (AKA mom) to sort out.

And now all the unpacking and cleaning and bullshit... well, one can take one's time with that.

I'm just so glad to be home. orz

☆ Wrestled with EI details today. The good: I managed to get almost everything taken care of, hooray! The bad: Because I received some pay from my previous employer after the date that I applied for EI, I'm going to need to call them and sort things out. (I applied on X date, but my final paycheque didn't go through until a few days later.) It should be pretty easy to set this all straight, but uh, I hate having to call about these things, and wait on hold, and blah blah blah. But as long as I write out a script beforehand, it'll be fine. orz

☆ Shaeiira fiiiinally was able to open the package of the SSSS book that I sent her aaages ago. <3 Seeing her reaction made me so happy. Totally worth it. Though, good lord, was it ever a long wait for that package to get to her, pf. Once everything returns to normal, and postal service is restored, I'll be doing another giveaway - this time it'll be for a necklace like the one in aRTD. But that'll be a while yet, maybe in July.

☆ Only a few days before we go back home. x_x This will be... interesting. On the one hand, I want to be back home. On the other hand, the city is going to be a mess, and I don't know if I want to drive through that again. Ugh. Well, there's nothing to be done about that.

☆ SPEAKING OF INTERNET, I don't know if I'll have internet in Fort McMurray, because our internet provider doesn't have detailed information about which areas have restored service and which are still waiting for it. Soooo I might disappear for a while. ;p Upside: I have downloaded sooo many public domain horror movies, I'll have no problem keeping myself occupied when I do have free time. Films + knitting, yay!

☆ Depending on how re-entry goes, and what ends up happening with work, I might possibly end up travelling somewhere in August - either to Calgary or Victoria, not sure which. BUT that is very fuzzy not-sure stuff yet; it's just an idea that's on the table. Maybe. If things go smoothly.

☆ TO TOP EVERYTHING OFF, I've come down with a headcold. Ugh, fml. This is just peachy. And by peachy I mean jfc, why.

☆ I am seriously considering writing fic of Dami Im's "Gladiator" music video. Or like, adding it to my list of stuff to potentially request for Yuletide or something. ...I mean hey, that song + that video is basically begging for fantasy knight/princess femslash to be written, far's I'm concerned. ;p Ehhh we will see what comes of this. (And noooo it's not too early to be thinking about Yuletide, what are you talking about, if I don't write a list down then by the time it's actually time to think about it, I'll be sitting there stunned and unable to remember anything that I want!)

☆ I can not brain, so I've been doing very little except sitting here knitting and watching old horror movies that I downloaded from archive.org. Not gonna lie, Grave of the Vampire certainly is... interesting... in a very "1970s B-rate horror movie" sort of way. Vampire pregnancy? Ooookay. Pretty cracktacular. But there were some things that were interesting in concept, if not execution. (Reluctant to go into detail there because hella' spoilers, but yeah.) Another film that I watched was the 1910 short of Frankenstein. Silent era films are always pretty fascinating for me - there's this sensation of, holy shit, this film is over 100 years old, and here I am, watching it. Anyway, this film - it's worth watching for the creation scene alone; the way they did it is pretty cool. And in some other parts, there were some really neat filming/composition/framing choices. But mostly, this just reminded me that I should totally watch more silent film. I just find early cinema so fascinating.

☆ Speaking of horror movies, I managed to catch VVitch this past Friday with the horror movie gang. It's pretty good, I thought; I liked it a lot, anyway. It's more of a quiet, atmospheric kind of story about a family dealing with loss and getting drawn in by a supernatural evil, rather than in-your-face horror. Normally I'm not crazy about films that deal with witchcraft (of the "worshipping Satan and dancing around a fire while naked" sort) but I found this one pretty interesting in spite of that. It's well worth a watch, I think.

And in fire news....
( Cut for length )

The provincial government put out an announcement about a plan for phased re-entry to Fort McMurray, starting June 01 (Source).

My impression of this is: sounds like they're pretty organized. But as far as I'm concerned, June 01st sounds like it's too soon. I doubt conditions will be safe to return at that time. True, anything can happen in two weeks, but the fire keeps getting bigger. All of the oil plant lodgings have been evac'd. I wouldn't be surprised if they eventually have to evacuate Fort McKay, too. There is so much smoke, and the fire is so big, it just - two weeks doesn't sound like it will be enough time. Not unless we get a ton of rain.

My parents are... too optimistic, I think. Either not understanding, or not wanting to acknowledge, that it is very likely that we won't be able to go back so soon, and that whenever we do get to go back, things are going to be a clusterfuck, and it will be a very long time before things return to anything resembling normal.

Arrived safely in Canada. Currently in Edmonton area with relatives, as planned.

I am sick of airplanes, and airport terminals, and flying, and security checks. I am not flying anywhere else for at least another year, thank you very much.

Wish I could have spent more time in Sweden, or basically literally anywhere else, but that's okay.

One of my relatives is coming up to see us tomorrow. That's nice. I haven't seen him in a long time. Since Grandmother's funeral, I think? Or maybe there was another time.

Dad says that he's been in contact with my boss and that they might put me to work in Edmonton... there is a lot of stuff that needs to be taken care of due to the evacuation and having to fly our employees off the work site quickly. Unfortunately, it isn't stuff I'm trained to do, but that's okay.

I dunno. I'm tired and drunk and it's not the time to deal with this nonsense. Good night.