Six months after the Chuckegg Fire tore through large portions of northwestern Alberta, officials with the County of Grande Prairie are reflecting on a period they have trained for but had never experienced anything close in real-world situations.
Between mid-May and early June 2019, The fires came dangerously close to the town of High Level and forced the evacuation of more than 10,000 residents. Thousands of those displaced made their way to the Grande Prairie area, with the Grande Prairie Regional Emergency Partnership setting up a registration centre for evacuees at Grande Prairie Regional College.
Now, as the calendar has turned over for another year, County officials are looking back at what was an unprecedented use of resources to help their northern Alberta neighbours through a horrific situation.
“Not only did our fire service respond, but our volunteers and family and community support services department also responded as a centre for receiving those who were displaced in the fire,” explains Reeve Leanne Beaupre.
Beaupre says by the end of the disaster period, thousands of volunteer hours had been clocked. She maintains that without the diligence of those working tirelessly to make the process work, it could have been a much different story for those fleeing from their everyday lives.
“We had a lot of people who stepped up and did above and beyond for those individuals that were forced out of their homes for different reasons.”
“They can train for it, but they’ve never implemented it to that level for sure,” she adds. “They’ve been put on notice that they might be but had to stand down as things subsided, thankfully, but this time they had to put it into action and I think they did a fantastic job with the resources they had.”
In all, around 800 evacuees were set up in hotels in the region until the evacuation order was lifted in High Prairie on June 3rd.