It's all hands on deck in Calgary as the city does its part to help those fleeing wildfires that devastated Jasper, Alta., and support firefighting efforts for the community. It's all hands on deck in Calgary as the city does its part to help those fleeing wildfires that devastated Jasper, Alta., and support firefighting efforts for the community.
Residents and tourists had been asked to evacuate days earlier, and a number of those had to make a long drive around the burning highways that surrounded the community to seek refuge in Calgary, where an emergency reception centre had been set up."The previous night, we'd had nearly zero overnight visitors, so we had modified our hours to close earlier in the evening," said Sue Henry, chief of the Calgary Emergency Management Agency.
"I can only imagine what it must have been like to have to rapidly evacuate and then drive 12 to 15 hours to show up here and be met with closed doors," she said.A longtime Jasper resident says the road to Calgary was long and winding. Matthew Murray left home around 2 a.m. Tuesday. "I saw a picture of flames behind a church, and my house is basically right behind that church," he said, pausing. "I would be willing to bet my house is on fire or is already burned.""There will be rebuilding and it will probably be a lot more corporate because that's where the money is," he said. "I don't think it's going to have anywhere near the same character or feeling that it's had.
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