[00:00:11] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to weathering the storm stories of the climate crisis from Alberta and around the world. This series is a part of the community podcast initiative in partnership with the Climate Disaster Project.
[00:00:28] Speaker B: I am your host, Mariana Tilla Delonier.
[00:00:30] Speaker A: And I'm jaden style.
[00:00:32] Speaker B: And in today's episode, we're going to talk about two wildfires that happened many years apart and 655 from one another in beautiful British Columbia.
[00:00:41] Speaker A: This episode may get a little heated for some listeners, so if you feel uncomfortable, we encourage you to take it at your own pace.
[00:00:49] Speaker B: In this first story, Melissa Heminger is going to talk about her family vacation in Kelowna, BC in 2009 when she was about nine or ten years old. She was enjoying her annual family vacation in her brand new cabin just built off the Okanagan lake. When it all took a turn.
[00:01:04] Speaker A: She watched her cabin burn down on a boat from the middle of the lake with her family. It was the first time she had experienced something like that which would alter her vacations forever.
[00:01:14] Speaker B: Without further ado, here's my conversation with Melissa Heminger.
Could you tell me more about who you are?
[00:01:30] Speaker C: My name is Melissa Heminger. I am 24 and currently I am a business degree student at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology.
[00:01:39] Speaker B: How are you liking sait?
[00:01:41] Speaker C: I really like Sait. They offer really hands on programs. So right now I am in my fourth year of my business degree. I'm studying my capstone right now. So it's a really integrative project and I love my professors, my classmates. It's all awesome.
[00:01:57] Speaker B: Could you tell me more about who you were growing up?
[00:02:00] Speaker C: So growing up, I danced all my life. I did that for about 14 years before I graduated. I've lived in airdream my entire life, and now I'm working as a marketing manager.
[00:02:16] Speaker B: Could you tell me more about the work you were most doing before the fires happened in Kelowna?
[00:02:21] Speaker C: Before the fires in Kelowna, they happened most significantly when I was about nine years old. So beforehand, I was just in school still dancing.
[00:02:32] Speaker B: Could you tell me about the people you most often took care of at the disaster? At the time of the disaster?
[00:02:38] Speaker C: Well, being the youngest sibling out of four, I would say I was the one most looked after.
I did really try to help out my family in any way that I could, but at the time I was still very young, so the help that I offered was less than significant.
[00:02:59] Speaker B: Could you tell me about how you came to be in Kelowna during the fire?
[00:03:03] Speaker C: Yeah. So my family spent every summer in Kelowna from the day I was born up until even when I graduated, we would go down there for one, two months at a time, and we have family down there, so we always visited with them. And, yeah, that's how I spent every summer.
[00:03:25] Speaker B: Could you tell me what the community was like before the fire happened? Yeah.
[00:03:30] Speaker C: Kelowna was a very small community back when I was younger and growing up there during the summers, but everyone in Kelowna was super nice, super helpful. And as the wildfires progressed, I think it was something that brought them more together as a community.
[00:03:50] Speaker B: Could you tell me about where you were staying at the time the fire happened?
[00:03:54] Speaker C: So this year in particular, we had just built a cabin on the west side of Kelowna. It was in an area called La Casa. It was a big community just right on the lake of Okanagan. And this is where we were staying for no more than a week before the wildfires hit.
[00:04:16] Speaker B: How did you become aware of the fire?
[00:04:20] Speaker C: Mostly through my family. They weren't trying to alarm me in any way, but because we got evacuated a week after staying there, my family brought it to myself and my siblings tension and let us know that we were being forced to leave.
[00:04:37] Speaker B: How did you leave that area when the fire started?
[00:04:41] Speaker C: Well, because we were only there for a month, we basically just packed up everything we had.
We evacuated. We went to the other side of the lake, which is where all the other residents had to go as well, and we found a small little condo that fit my family of six, and that's where we had to stay for the remainder of the trip.
[00:05:05] Speaker B: Could you describe what you remember happening to you during the fire?
[00:05:09] Speaker C: Yeah. So the evacuation was pretty scary. I remember as we were leaving, the smoke was extremely thick.
As we were driving to the other side of the lake, we actually took our boat out into the middle of the lake, and I remember being young and just sitting there, and I remember the flames just being so high, and we just kind of sat there in the middle of the lake on our boat, just watching the fires get bigger and bigger and bigger. And it was a really terrifying experience for someone who was only nine or ten years old.
[00:05:49] Speaker B: Could you describe any sights, sounds, and smell that you remember from the fire?
[00:05:54] Speaker C: Yeah, the smell was probably the biggest thing for me. It smelled like fire. It smelled like thick, thick air. There was ash falling down from the sky, and the fire was so bright. Like, even at night the fire just lit up the sky. It was so bright, and the air was just thick. You felt sick. That's ultimately why we decided to leave.
[00:06:22] Speaker B: How long did it take for your parents to decide when it was a good time to leave?
[00:06:27] Speaker C: After we had evacuated and gone over to the other side of the lake, we had to make sure that our grandparents, who live in Clona as well, were set up in a position that they were safe as well. So I'd say we were there for maybe about another week or so before we decided to go back home.
[00:06:44] Speaker B: What effect did the fire have on you?
[00:06:47] Speaker C: I think it was really just a scary experience for someone who was so young, but it really made me rely so much on my family and my family relying on the community and my grandparents relying on us as well, that I think, if anything, it just really brought us closer together because we've never been put in a situation like that before.
So I think that was the biggest impacts that it had on my relationship with my family.
[00:07:19] Speaker B: Could you describe what effects the fire had on other people? You know?
[00:07:23] Speaker C: Yeah. So the fires happen almost every year now, and I know a lot of people have been suffering with long term health effects from that in regards to their breathing and their overall. You know, my grandparents suffered greatly as well with that because they live in Kelowna. They didn't have any option to just go back home to Calgary. So that's something that they suffered with for many years.
[00:07:53] Speaker B: Or not. Parents, are your grandparents still living in Kelowna now?
[00:07:56] Speaker C: My grandma unfortunately passed a few years later. After that, my grandpa, who is now 94, lives by himself in Kelowna.
[00:08:08] Speaker B: Could you describe what effect the fire had on the community you were in?
[00:08:13] Speaker C: Yeah. So the entire side or the west side of Kelowna had to go over to the other side. So a lot of people were in a housing Cris because they didn't have anywhere to go.
So a lot of people were in a situation where they didn't have their home anymore and no one was finding a relocation service for them. So a lot of people had to band together during that time and find shelters and find homes and find people that they can stay with, which sounds awful, but in a way it really did bring the community together.
[00:08:53] Speaker B: How did the fire make you feel about climate change?
[00:08:57] Speaker C: I think at the time I didn't really understand why the fire was happening and that it was from climate change. But over the years, as I got older and I watched the fires happen in BC every single year, and even living in know you can sometimes feel effects of the wildfires in BC because the smoke travels so far. And I think at that point when I realized this is an issue and it's happening every year, and it's because the temperatures are just getting so incredibly high progressively every year that this is becoming a more serious issue.
[00:09:37] Speaker B: Have you been back to Kelowna since the fire happened?
[00:09:40] Speaker C: Yeah, I've been back multiple times. We still went there every summer. I think that summer was the hardest because it really forced us out. But every year we go back, we just have to be super cautious about that. We did end up selling our cabin because my dad and my mom both agreed that it was just too much of a risk with the fires happening every year. So instead of doing that, we now just rented a condo every now where we saw fit, where it was close to the lake, it was safe and kind of out of the way of that.
[00:10:18] Speaker B: Could you describe the help you received during the fire?
[00:10:22] Speaker C: Yeah, the help was really nice. I mean, the officials at La Casa, the people who worked in the community, they were so overly nice in assisting us in getting us out of our cabin, getting us on our way to the other side of the lake, providing options for us for places to stay. And so that part was really nice, and I don't know where we would have gone without that help.
[00:10:51] Speaker B: What kind of help would you have wanted during the fire but didn't receive.
[00:10:56] Speaker C: At nine years old? I think I really, more than anything, just wanted to stay in the cabin, but those kind of things weren't possible at the time. And I think, if anything, I wish that there were better help for the residents who actually lived there, because those are the people who were probably impacted more than anything, being forced out of their homes. And so I think that, if anything, they should have paid more attention to those who lived there and finding them the help that they deserved.
[00:11:32] Speaker B: Could you tell me about how you helped yourself and others during the disaster?
[00:11:37] Speaker C: Yeah, so during the time that we had to evacuate, I can't say I did much as a child, other than being forced to share a room with my sister. I think that was the most gracious act that I did during the time.
[00:11:55] Speaker B: What do you think could have been done to help people like yourself if the fire happened again when you were still there?
[00:12:01] Speaker C: I think at the time, the wildfires were relatively new, so I don't really know if BC or Kelowna had any protocols set up in place. I think they do now, but better relocation services for everyone during the time would have been extremely helpful.
I know that some places were offering food, shelter and water for those who couldn't have access to it at the time. So I think being able to have that stuff ready for when this kind of thing happens again is extremely crucial.
[00:12:35] Speaker B: What do you think could be done about the climate change that is increasing the frequency and intensity of these kinds of disasters?
[00:12:42] Speaker C: I think that it's the little things that people implement into their lifestyle that can have the biggest impact on how climate change and its current state is whether that's cutting down on your co2 emissions. Being careful about fire bands and just monitoring your day to day lifestyle is important in just maintaining, important in reducing the effect that climate change has on us today.
[00:13:13] Speaker B: So after experiencing the fire in Kelowna at a young age, what brings you hope for the future, for climate change?
[00:13:20] Speaker C: I think people now are starting to wake up and realize that this is our reality and that things are getting progressively worse than they were ten years ago. So the impact that big corporations have on the waste, their emissions, and everything that they put out there in such large quantities is extremely crucial. And the way politicians view it as well, that it's not just something that we can gloss over or do worry about in 15 years when it gets really bad. The time is now, and that's what gives me the most hope.
[00:14:00] Speaker B: Perfect. Well, I want to thank you again for coming to the interview. Is there anything else you would like to add about climate change or about the experience you had when you were younger?
[00:14:08] Speaker C: Everyone has an impact on climate change. Just because most of it comes from big corporations doesn't mean you can't play your role in stopping climate change.
[00:14:18] Speaker B: Perfect. Thank you so much, Melissa, for being on my podcast.
That's Melissa Heminger and how her family vacations were changed forever because of the 2009 wildfires in Kelowna. I can see how the smoke was one of the most notable things about her experience here in Calgary. We're always getting the wildfire smoke and.
[00:14:36] Speaker C: It makes it trickier to breathe.
[00:14:38] Speaker B: So I couldn't imagine what it would.
[00:14:39] Speaker C: Be like to breathe with a wildfire.
[00:14:41] Speaker B: Being only a few kilometers away.
[00:14:44] Speaker A: Next up, we have another story about.
[00:14:46] Speaker D: A forest fire disaster.
[00:14:47] Speaker A: My oldest friend, Safford van Weich, joins us to discuss his close encounter with a wildfire back in 2021.
[00:14:54] Speaker B: This story also takes place in beautiful BC, where Safford's family has a cabin property right outside of the small town of Sparwood.
[00:15:02] Speaker D: That's right.
[00:15:03] Speaker A: I sat down with Safford to talk about how his small local community navigated a climate disaster.
[00:15:09] Speaker B: Unfortunately, this event took place very recently and serves as a reminder that the reoccurring wildfire show no signs of slowing down.
[00:15:16] Speaker D: Absolutely.
[00:15:17] Speaker A: Even in today's day events like this continue to destroy communities all across BC. And with that in mind, here's my conversation with Safford van Weich, a local Calgary resident with a place in BC.
[00:15:39] Speaker D: First up, Safford, I would just like to ask you, could you tell me more about who you are?
[00:15:45] Speaker E: Well, Jaden, like you said, my name is Safford. I'm 21 years old, currently working at the keg as a bartender and going to school for business administration.
[00:15:59] Speaker D: Nice. That's awesome.
[00:16:01] Speaker E: Thank you very much.
[00:16:02] Speaker D: Do you think you could tell me more about who you were growing up?
[00:16:06] Speaker E: Yes, well, when we were growing up, I was playing a lot of sports.
I would spend most of the summers out in BC at my family's cabin with my mom, my dad, my brother, my sister, and I attended elementary school with you growing up, which was an absolute blast.
[00:16:28] Speaker D: Oh, yeah.
Okay. Well, moving on from that, could you tell me about the work you were most often doing before this forest fire happened?
[00:16:41] Speaker E: Yeah, so I was mostly just bartending.
I did do a little bit of work at the saddle dome, which was quite exciting, watching the flames play. Go, flames.
[00:16:55] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:16:56] Speaker E: Still doing the same job now for the most part.
[00:16:59] Speaker D: Nice.
[00:16:59] Speaker E: A couple of side gigs here and there.
[00:17:01] Speaker D: Oh, yeah.
Good stuff, man. Good stuff. Could you tell me about the people you were living with at the time of this forest fire?
[00:17:10] Speaker E: Yes, that would be my mom, my dad, brother and sister, a new dog and my girlfriend.
[00:17:18] Speaker D: Nice. That sounds fantastic. Thank you. Yeah.
Could you maybe tell me about what you were most often doing other than work before this disaster?
[00:17:30] Speaker E: Yeah, well, I've been spending a lot of time with our new puppy.
She's a lot of work, she's got lots of energy, so taking her on lots of walks.
Prior to this forest fire, I was spending lots of time out of the cabin and doing some fishing, doing some cliff jumping and getting it ready for the winter.
[00:17:56] Speaker D: Beautiful winterization process.
[00:17:59] Speaker E: Exactly.
[00:18:00] Speaker D: Got to do it. Do you think you could tell me about the people you most often took care of at this time?
[00:18:07] Speaker E: Yes, well, my two little siblings, they're both pretty crazy. Their sister is 16, or she would have been 14 at the time and my brother would have been 18. So he's just becoming an adult. So he was a lot of work watching over him.
[00:18:29] Speaker D: Oh, yeah.
[00:18:30] Speaker E: And my sister just starting into high school, so she was pretty nervous trying to make those new friends. And then that dog, Cindy Lou, she needs a lot of attention, that's for sure.
[00:18:43] Speaker D: It could be a handful of those puppies. Oh, yeah, absolutely.
So, Safford, do you think you could tell me how old you were at the time of this?
[00:18:55] Speaker E: Yeah. So I would have been 20 years old when this forest fire would have happened.
[00:19:01] Speaker D: Do you think you could tell me about how you came to be a part of the community you were in?
[00:19:07] Speaker E: Yes, I've been in that little town of Sparwood for about 15 years now and a lot of them are old farmers and it is a great community. Everybody likes to help each other out. And so when the forest fire started to get pretty close, some of the young guys would go and help out. Some of the older people trying to get their houses ready to try our best to prevent the forest fires from reaching there.
[00:19:39] Speaker D: Absolutely.
It takes a lot of community work to get that done too.
[00:19:44] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:19:45] Speaker D: Could you tell me what that community was like before the forest fire happened?
[00:19:50] Speaker E: Oh yeah, they're a bunch of jolly old men working really hard. They'd love to come help us out. Us city slickers.
[00:19:59] Speaker D: Oh, the city slickers.
[00:20:00] Speaker E: Yeah, they'd like to come over and help us with our driveway in the winter. Plow it.
Yeah, a bunch of really nice people.
[00:20:10] Speaker D: Nice. That's fantastic.
[00:20:12] Speaker E: Thank you.
[00:20:14] Speaker D: Could you tell me about where you were staying at the time of this forest fire?
[00:20:18] Speaker E: Yeah, so I would have been at my cabin, which would be right in between the towns of Sparwood and Elkford, BC.
[00:20:25] Speaker D: Nice. It's a nice little area.
[00:20:27] Speaker E: Thank you.
[00:20:28] Speaker D: Yeah, for sure.
[00:20:29] Speaker E: You have to come out sometime.
[00:20:30] Speaker D: Yeah, I have to see it out there, man. See the mountains. That'd be nice.
Could you describe how you became aware of the forest fires?
[00:20:40] Speaker E: Well, we were actually in Calgary and we have a camera on our door and we saw the firefighters come up to the door and so right then my dad was a little bit concerned about what was going on, but we haven't received any calls so we weren't too worried. So they sent their oldest child up to go and investigate.
They didn't want to risk sending any of the other ones.
[00:21:08] Speaker D: He's lived the most years.
[00:21:10] Speaker E: Yeah. So they shipped me up there and sure enough, the next day those firefighters were back and as you were driving up you could see the smoke just in the valley and it was pretty close. So they kind of helped us out with what happens worst case scenario and help us just try to fireproof the house and get rid of some of the slash. Like the dead trees near our cabin. And the burn pile. Exactly, the burn piles. So yeah, that was good. They helped us out a lot.
[00:21:42] Speaker D: Definitely. I mean, that's actually good. For real though that they're there like that.
[00:21:47] Speaker E: Yeah, absolutely. They were awesome. They came up every day to kind of check on us, and they had a really good plan in motion with, like, they'd bring these big bladders of water, so we run on a well. Right. So they'd bring the bladder of water and just, we'd attach sprinklers all over the house and just try to get that ground nice and moist.
[00:22:08] Speaker D: Absolutely. See, that's good prevention there before things get bad.
That's fantastic.
[00:22:15] Speaker E: Yeah, they did great.
[00:22:16] Speaker D: Yeah. Could you describe what you remember happening to you during the forest fire?
[00:22:22] Speaker E: Yeah, well, I was a little bit nervous as it started to get closer and closer, but I spent most of the days watching the helicopters fly into the Elk river, pick up those big buckets of water and dump them on the fire. It's pretty cool to see.
And, yeah, online, actually, it'd be on Twitter following their account. And, yeah, they kind of give you status updates on the fire, so I was kind of just watching it from a safe distance, you could say, the whole time.
[00:22:51] Speaker D: Oh, yeah. Monitoring it while it goes down.
[00:22:53] Speaker E: Exactly. Had the car backed in in case I needed to make a quick escape.
[00:23:00] Speaker D: Fire chasers.
[00:23:01] Speaker E: Exactly.
[00:23:02] Speaker D: Storm chasers.
[00:23:03] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:23:05] Speaker D: Okay. Could you describe any sights, sounds, smells.
[00:23:09] Speaker E: That you remember from this forest fire? Well, driving up that very first day, it was pretty crazy to see the smoke and how close it was to where I know the cabin is.
Obviously it was very smoky out there. And sound wise, probably just those helicopters going over top of the cabin, like, a couple of times every hour. It was pretty crazy.
And, yeah, every time I'd drive into town, the fire and the smoke would kind of shift a little bit. And it was kind of cool to monitor it, but also a little bit scary seeing it kind of get closer and closer.
[00:23:49] Speaker D: Absolutely.
[00:23:50] Speaker E: And then on that Twitter account, they posted a photo of the aerial point of view, and it gave me a little bit of a better look as to where it was, where it was going, where the wind is shifting it.
[00:24:03] Speaker D: Yeah, you get a really good perspective, especially from a bird's eye view.
[00:24:07] Speaker E: Exactly.
[00:24:08] Speaker D: That's crazy, man.
Could you describe what you remember happening to you after the forest fire?
[00:24:16] Speaker E: Yeah, I was very relieved when leaving, knowing that the forest fire was no longer a threat to my family or to the surrounding community.
It was great to see all the people, too, kind of be a little bit less stressed out, back to their jolly old ways.
Yeah, after that, too. Although the forest fires are never really a great thing to witness, especially when they're close to you, it is kind of nice to know that that ecosystem will be rebooted and. Yeah, although it pains us to watch, it is good for the world in specific.
I don't know how to say it under specific circumstances.
[00:25:11] Speaker D: Right.
[00:25:11] Speaker E: As long as it doesn't get too out of control. But it does replenish the environment.
[00:25:16] Speaker D: Absolutely. It can serve a certain purpose. Right, exactly. And when people are ready for it like that, too, it's kind of like contained. Very contained.
[00:25:25] Speaker E: Yeah, they did a great job.
[00:25:27] Speaker D: Good stuff. Good people, good fire department.
[00:25:30] Speaker E: Exactly.
[00:25:31] Speaker D: It's good stuff.
Could you describe what effect the forest fires had on you?
[00:25:37] Speaker E: Yeah, well, I did have to take some time off of work, which as a young student was not ideal.
Yeah, stress levels probably weren't too good either when I started realizing how close they were getting.
[00:25:51] Speaker D: Oh, yeah.
[00:25:53] Speaker E: Other than that, though, they didn't end up affecting us too. Too much.
I felt bad, but I also felt relieved knowing how much work the firefighters were putting into it and helping out us and other communities. But, yeah, I was lucky.
[00:26:09] Speaker D: That's fantastic to hear. I'm glad you made it out on skate.
[00:26:13] Speaker E: Thank you very much.
[00:26:14] Speaker D: Yes, sir.
Do you think you could describe what effect the disaster had on the community you were in?
[00:26:22] Speaker E: Yeah, some farmers were definitely getting a little bit worried because their whole lives are out in those fields with some cattle and some horses, some are growing some crops.
And for us, we're lucky that that's just the cabin, but for these other people, it's their homes, their whole lifestyle. Exactly. And some of them have been there for like, 8000 years, so I think they were a little bit more concerned than I was.
[00:26:50] Speaker D: Yeah, absolutely. Justifiably so. Right.
[00:26:53] Speaker E: Yeah, very.
[00:26:54] Speaker D: So much to lose there.
[00:26:56] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:26:56] Speaker D: Could you describe the help you received during the forest fire?
[00:27:00] Speaker E: Yeah, so, like I was saying earlier, the firefighters were there almost every single. Well, they were there every single day, coming in, checking up on us, giving us an exit route, or telling us which way would be best. They also walked up the tree line and made, like, a little path for them in case they needed to climb up the mountain and tackle the forest fire from up there.
They really helped us out with fireproofing. The place obviously wasn't perfect, but we had to tarp up a lot of stuff, especially, like, our big woodshed is fairly close to the cabin, and so obviously that's our firewood. So it's dried wood that's very flammable. So we had to tarp that up and get it all protected and, yeah, they gave us a great guideline to follow and they're very helpful.
[00:27:52] Speaker D: That's actually low key, though. Really important, bro. And kind of nice that they went way out of their way to do that.
[00:27:58] Speaker E: It was super helpful. Yeah. And very smart. Definitely looking ahead and just getting ready for that worst case scenario, which luckily didn't have to get to.
[00:28:08] Speaker D: Absolutely, dude. That's the kind of stuff we need to prevent any sort of bad climate thing. Exactly. So do you think you could have described any help you would have wanted during the forest fires but potentially didn't get?
[00:28:22] Speaker E: No. Honestly, I'm very happy with the work that the firefighters did and I could not ask for much more. Yeah, they were amazing.
[00:28:30] Speaker D: That's fantastic.
Could you describe the help you received after the forest fires?
[00:28:38] Speaker E: Well, to be quite honest, after the forest fires, they came up and they told us that they've got it under control, which was very relieving. And other than that, there wasn't really much help needed. We just kind of had to take off some of their fireproof tarps and get the place back to normal.
[00:28:58] Speaker D: Nice.
That's fantastic.
[00:29:01] Speaker E: Thank you.
[00:29:02] Speaker D: Yeah.
Could you maybe tell me a little bit about how you helped yourself and others during the forest fire?
[00:29:09] Speaker E: Yeah. Well, like I said, when those firefighters came up, they offered to do all the work. It was a big crew of them, but I decided to go out and help them because while I know the place best, and I'm a young guy who's very capable of helping them out, I know they work very hard, so I thought I'd do my part. And they asked me if I was able to go and help one of our older neighbors, Charlie.
Yeah, you probably know Charlie. They asked us or they asked me if I could go help him out. And so, sure enough, I was over there lifting up some wood for him, getting it away from his house and putting it into a bigger burn pile.
[00:29:52] Speaker D: Oh, yeah.
[00:29:52] Speaker E: And, yeah, just helping out with some of the lifting.
[00:29:54] Speaker D: Nice.
[00:29:55] Speaker E: Yeah, that's good.
[00:29:57] Speaker D: It's good that there's something for everyone to do. Exactly. Times like this really brings people together, at least exactly. Which is kind of nice.
What do you think could be done to help people like yourself if a forest fire happens again?
[00:30:12] Speaker E: Well, as long as those firefighters are there, I feel very confident in their ability to prevent it. I think a lot of the time people do need to be just aware of their surroundings and obviously, if they're smelling smoke or if they're seeing smoke, just to kind of be cautious. But also, we had a lot of work to be done around the cabin, and I think in hindsight, we should have just had that done already and ready to go. And so next time, if there is a forest fire, we can just put those tarps on and won't have to move anything.
[00:30:47] Speaker D: Absolutely. You'll always have that plan and kind of in the bank now, right?
[00:30:51] Speaker E: Exactly.
[00:30:51] Speaker D: If that ever happens again. See, that's a huge thing.
What do you think could be done about the climate change that is increasing the frequency and intensity of these kinds of disasters?
[00:31:04] Speaker E: Well, that's a very difficult question.
I know there are some ways to kind of be a little bit more cautious and environmentally friendly.
Simple things such as recycling really do make a big difference.
If you can walk or bike somewhere and it's not too cold or if it's not too far, that's a great option to kind of help eliminate some emissions.
[00:31:32] Speaker D: Oh, yeah.
[00:31:34] Speaker E: I do think it is important, too, to just go out and see the environment and kind of, I don't know if you can appreciate it. I think it's a little bit easier to want to help the environment as well. Little things such as littering, too, is just. Can't be littering.
[00:31:53] Speaker D: Hell, no.
[00:31:54] Speaker E: Take a couple of minutes out of your day or just keep that little piece of garbage in your car and wait till you get home and dispose of it the proper way. Yeah. All that composting we do. Give it back.
[00:32:06] Speaker D: Here's my banana peel. An Apple core.
[00:32:10] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:32:12] Speaker D: That was a great answer, bro.
[00:32:14] Speaker E: Well, thank you.
[00:32:17] Speaker D: Looking back on the forest fires, how do you feel about it now?
[00:32:21] Speaker E: Well, like I mentioned earlier, I do think it's good that it is good for the environment to have these controlled forest fires, because I think it really does help bring a new ecosystem in and get rid of the old and bring in the new. Kind of comes back stronger each time.
It's just like when you log a certain area. If you log it and you replant it, next thing you know, you got trees that are grown back bigger and stronger, like you mentioned earlier, too. Now that we have this little plan in play, if this ever does happen again, I feel a lot more confident, hopefully not having to go into another one. But if it does happen, you never know with that mother Nature. She's a crazy lady.
[00:33:08] Speaker D: Oh, she is.
[00:33:09] Speaker E: But if it does ever happen again, we feel ready.
[00:33:12] Speaker D: Absolutely. See, that's good. It's like a trial run. Exactly. The real thing.
[00:33:18] Speaker E: It's a great little test of it.
[00:33:20] Speaker D: First, try the little kitty hill at the ski hill.
[00:33:23] Speaker E: That's a great way to put it.
[00:33:25] Speaker D: Yeah. See what it's about we know what we're doing. We know what we're doing. Yeah. So I guess what I want to ask you is what brings you hope for the future?
[00:33:35] Speaker E: I do think people are starting to look at some of the environmental crisis that we've had and they are starting to take action, which is great. I do think there are good ways and bad ways though, of getting people to recognize it. A bad way would be to throw soup on a super protected painting. That is brutal.
I do think people need to be aware, but that is one awful reason of doing it.
[00:34:01] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:34:01] Speaker E: I do slowly believe that people are starting to think twice before making some of their decisions and just thinking about the environment. And people have that sort of appreciation for it and they don't want to lose what they know. And so brings me hope that the world as a whole is going to come together and try to do their best. Obviously we can't just clean it up in one day, but I think we're on the right track.
[00:34:23] Speaker D: Hey, Rome wasn't built in a we're on. A lot of people are on the right path and they have the right idea. Right, exactly. The collective consciousness is on the right path. Right? Exactly. Optimistically. Well, Stafford, thank you so much for your time today. We appreciate it. Very much so and we hope all the best for you and your family in the future.
[00:34:52] Speaker A: That's Safford Ben White, a local Calgary resident who experienced a scary encounter with a forest fire near his BC cabin. After hearing his story, I couldn't help but think how much worse things could have been had it not been for their extensive preparation, an entire community may have lost their livelihoods. His story serves as a reminder of how we as a society must continue to approach climate disasters with extreme care and preparation. It showcases the significant role that community plays.
[00:35:24] Speaker B: Most importantly, Safford's story highlights that the only way we can overcome climate disasters is by working together.
Thanks for listening to weathering the storm stories of the climate cris from Alberta and around the world. I'm Mariana Tele Delonier.
[00:35:39] Speaker A: And I'm Jayden Steidel.
[00:35:40] Speaker B: This series is powered by Shaw and part of the Community podcast Initiative. Based out of Mount Royal University.
It was produced on the lands that are home to the Nisasapi Aa, Nakota, Satina and Maitis people. We recognize the stewards of these lands and we hope to contribute to a better understanding of our environment by sharing stories of those affected by climate change.
Special thanks to our partner, the Climate Disaster project, and to our guests, Melissa Heminger and Safford van weich for joining us. You can learn more about the Climate Disaster
[email protected]. Be sure to subscribe to the show to hear the latest weather in the storm and discover new podcasts from the Community podcast Initiative at thepodcastudio, CA.
