Lobstick Fire: Shellbrook evacuees pack up clothes, passports and Barbies

Inside a Victoire home’s wood-panelled living room are bins, boxes, and black garbage bags overflowing with the most important pieces of one family’s life.

It’s everything that Pamela Wozniak and her three children were able to pack up in two hours before evacuating their home in the RM of the Shellbrook Friday night and heading to her sister’s place.

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The evacuation order was issued by the Saskatchewan Public Safety Authority (SPSA) because of the Lobstick wildfire. As of 4:30 p.m. on May 30, the order extended south, east, and west of the town of Shellbrook.

Wozniak said she first learned her family would have to evacuate on Friday evening around 5 p.m.

That day had consistently gotten smokier but, “then as we were packing stuff up, it just got worse, like increasingly worse,” until the area was under an orange haze, she said.

While patches of blue sky were still visible, a smoky haze laid over the community of Shellbrook Saturday morning. (Marija Robinson/650 CKOM)

Just as her family was pulling out at 7 p.m., a fire truck was heading down their road.

According to Wozniak, there weren’t any residents left behind.

“My neighbours were gonna stick around,” she said. But, as soon as the fire crews arrived it became clear that this was, “a real evacuation. So, they were prepared, packed up, and everybody left.”

Some of the belongings Wozniak made sure to pack up were clothes, birth certificates, mementos of dead loved ones, and toys — including Barbies for her five-year-old daughter.

It’s been a stressful experience, though, for both her and the kids.

Her seven-year-old son keeps asking to look at a map of the fire, “just to see if he’s safe,” Wozniak said.

As she tries to reassure him that everything’s okay, she’s also having to do the same for herself.

“I’m nervous, I’m scared. I have been told through the grapevine that my house is okay, but I don’t know if that’s 100 per cent accurate,” she said.

“I’m holding on to that hope, though, because I don’t know what I’m gonna do, if it’s gone. I’ll basically be starting over with my kids, and I don’t want that,” Wozniak continued.

Wozniak’s family is just one of dozens that registered at Shellbrook’s Elk’s Hall as wildfire evacuees.

According to Tasha Cyr, who’s running the emergency evacuation registration at the hall, there were about 60 people and families who signed up between Friday night and Saturday at 9 a.m.

Cyr said organizers are providing people with the latest wildfire information and helping connect them with the right resources.

People in Shellbrook have volunteered their homes and spare bedrooms for those without anywhere to go and the SPSA is finding places for evacuees to stay.

For Wozniak, she and her family will stay with her sister in Victoire until they can go back home, though there’s no word yet on when that will be.

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