Broken glass growl under Marguerite Pike’s green rubber boots, while walking through a pile of rubble covered with ashes.
It bends and collects a couple of glass dishes that have melted. Next to it is the blackened and twisted metal frame of what used to be a bathtub.
This is the ruin of Pike’s happy place: the cabin who had with her husband, Ken, for more than 30 years. It was destroyed by the Fire Wildfire of Chance Harbor, who was burning control on the Peninsula of Bonavista de Terranova for almost two weeks.
“I choose not to think about that,” said Pike, while stopping on his wooden dock holding a large and framed photograph of his cabin before the flames were destroyed.
“That’s how bad it is. Don’t think about that at all.”
The forest fire, which began in the area of Puerto del Chance on July 14, has burned an estimate of 1,820 hectares of land in the last two weeks, according to the Provincial Forest Fire Board. Until Monday, it is labeled on the board as under control.
Residents estimate that at least 40 cabins have been lost in the Harbor Wildfire chance, mainly in the small tickets of Warrick’s Cove, Pudding Cove and Deer Island Hickle throughout Bonavista’s bay. People with cabins in these coves describe the area as a united community that feels more to the family.
While many cabins in the area are people’s summer escapes, Pike says that she and her husband spent half of the year in her place in Warrick’s Cove, even on vacation like New Year’s Day and Christmas Day.
Fishing with grandchildren and outdoor meals are moments that Pike reflects with love while he is on his dock. But she can’t point to a favorite memory.
“Every day was a memory,” he said.
Decades of hard work destroyed
Ryan Pitts guides his boat along a calm waters in a coast that he knows as the back of his hand.
Pitts has lived in the Peninsula of Bonavista all his life. He moves his boat on a dock in Canning’s Cove, the community in which he was born and where his parents still live. It takes approximately one hour and 15 minutes to drive its boat from that dock to the heart of the country of the cabin.
Since the fire broke out, he has made that trip on his boat, rightly called “moral support”, almost every day, challenging the flames and thick smoke to help people save what they can from their properties.
The Chance Harbor Wildfire has been burning out of control for about two weeks, and is causing generalized destruction in the country of the cabin in Bonavista Bay. While many cabin owners lost their properties in the fire, others stayed close and fought against the flames themselves. Jessica Singer of CBC informs.
During his trips, Pitts has also been capturing destruction on his cell phone, sending videos and images to friends to update them about the state of their cabins. He also shares what he sees on social networks, scenes that he describes as a war zone.
Open your phone and click on a video that shows thick columns of black smoke that move in the sky and huge flames quickly eating rows of perennial leaf trees.
“I began to record it because the cabins mean a lot for us,” he said. “Some people think you are losing a cabin, it is not a big problem, but for us, it is a big problem.”
Pitts says that the tenderness invest their hearts and souls in their properties, which are sometimes located in a land that has belonged to family or friends for generations. People save every little money they can get to build a cabin, he says, and decades spend working on renovations and updates.
While Pitts sits the helm of his boat on Wednesday morning, there is a bit of chill in the air. It is cloudy, but the water is calm, almost still. A pair of helicopters surround in a wooded area approximately one hour from the cabin country, dropping water cubes into hot spots that are swelling the gray smoke.
The chaos that it has witnessed during the past week has decreased mainly, but the destruction that left in its path has transformed the picturesque landscape he knows since childhood.
Point out a completely intact spring with a red picnic table on top that leads to a burned black plot. In another land plot, one of his friend’s outdoor food sheds is now a flattened piece of metal roofs and shattered glass.
Kill the boat in Pudding Cove at the place of your aunt. What used to be a bright yellow booth with red ornaments is now a lot of waste and ashes. The twisted metal bed frames and the curtain rods are found in the carbonized floor. Pitts’s father, Marvin, lifts a pot and a pan of the remains he hopes to bring home and rescue.
“Difficult to see. Difficult to believe what I am seeing,” he said. “Many memories, missing, like this.”
While many families are crying the loss of their safe shelters, there are still a series of standing cabins. Pitts says this is thanks to the hard work of the residents who chose to fight the fire.
‘There are times that I feel a little guilty’
Ray Little bought his cabin at Deer Island seven years ago, a place that his father and four brothers helped build in 1991.
While his cabin is still completely intact, the traces of the anger of the fire are within reach, since the branches of the carbonized trees and the blackened cortex are located a few meters from his cabin.
The reason why the flames did not reach their place is because he spent eight days fighting the columns of smoke and hunting his property with water.
Despite the department of fishing, afforestation and agriculture, advising people in the area of Great Chance Harbor to leave their cabins, little ones and some friends traveled from one place to another from their homes in the communities near Deer Island Tickle to fight the fire with a water pump and a hose.
Little has been a firefighter with the Volunteer Fire Department of Musgravetown for more than 20 years, and says he always made sure he was far from any flames, and when the smoke became too thick, he got on his boat and waited until he clarified.
Using rubber boots, a mask and its regular street clothes, Little and their friends saved three cabins in the area.
“To save something we loved, it means something,” Little said. “On the other side, there are times that I feel a little guilty. Why is mine, someone else’s has gone?”
Perry Ash also saved his cabin in Deer Island Tickle, although he had no experience in the fire until his property was in danger.
When the forest fire broke out for the first time, Ash ran to his cabin and discovered that his brother Ricky’s place was already destroyed, and the flames approached his house.
Ash spent two days launching five gallon water cubes on his terrace and cabin, fighting the smoke without a mask. Finally, he obtained access to water pumps and after a week of hard and physical work, saved his property.
His fire fighting uniform was a pair of jeans, a shirt with buttons and new Costco shoes.
“I had more strength than I thought I once had,” Ash said, stopped in his deck.
Little says that he and most of the other people he know in the area have no insurance in his cabins. It is too expensive, or have not found a plan that covers fire insurance, since there are no fire hydrants in the area and fire trucks cannot reach small tickets.
Trevor Holloway was not insurance in his cabin in Pudding Cove, which was demolished by the forest fire. The only thing his family was able to save was a generator and a scooter.
He says that his family put up to $ 80,000 in his cabin, who has slowly been renewing and building for about 30 years.
It was a “hand and love” place. Other family members had a cabin to the side, and he says that everyone would gather to share meals and laughs.
Many people who lost their cabins will not be able to rebuild what was lost, says Holloway. It is too expensive effort, or family members are aging too much to do physical work or boat travel to their properties.
Holloway says that his family could build a hut on the beach to replace what they lost. For now, he says that many people in the community feel lost and are finding comfort in the memories of their happy place.
“It was devastating see, a disaster,” said Holloway. “All memories had gone in smoke. It is difficult to explain how much joy has gone.”
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