“I didn’t think we were going to get out alive,” said Lac La Biche RCMP Constable Chris Clark who was doing traffic control in Slave Lake on Sunday two weeks ago when the flames began to spread.
“I was standing on the highway and I can just hear popping and cracking in the forest as the fire was coming towards us.”
Clark and Const. Dan Wakelin were the first officers to head up to Slave Lake on May 15 to lend a hand in blocking the highway but Clark says they didn’t realize at the time that they would be part of an evacuation of a whole town as the fire spread, burning more than 200,000 hectares and destroying countless homes and municipal buildings.
“At one point when the flames were spreading, we were told to call our families because we might not get out. I thought I was going to die,” said Clark.
Clark said many officers from across northern Alberta were risking their lives to get people out of their homes and the town, including Slave Lake RCMP officers who were helping people despite their own homes being destroyed by the flames, said the local officer.
“There was one point when I went to a home because we were told people were still inside and when I got back to my car, there was flames on either side. I jumped through them and had to drive through the fire, across the yard and through a fence because the flames were so bad all around me,” said Clark, adding that buildings were also collapsing. “I drove by a church, which was still standing, and when I looked in my review mirror, I watched it collapse.”
The local officers weren’t the only ones to risk their lives, and one pilot died last Friday afternoon after his firefighting helicopter crashed into the waters of Lesser Slave Lake. The cause of the crash is still unknown since investigators can’t access the wreckage due to the fire.
A Lac La Biche Sustainable Resources Development team of 15 people also went up to Slave Lake last week, including members in the management and communications and logistics sector. Some Kikino Metis Settlement residents also volunteered to help battle the fire.
There were 44 fires still burning in Alberta as of Monday afternoon, including fires in the Slave Lake area that still continue to burn.
More than 23,000 hectares have already burned in the Slave Lake area.