CRYSTAL Sangris barely slept for three days as wildfires threatened her hometown in northern Canada, and when she was ordered to evacuate, her anxiety turned to anguish.

“I never, never thought that this day would come,” she told AFP yesterday at the Calgary airport after she left her home in Yellowknife, a city of 20,000 people, that is now surrounded by flames.

“I didn’t want to leave home,” Sangris, of First Nations origin, told AFP.

The 33-year-old housewife was evacuated yesterday with her husband and three children on one of several flights that landed in Calgary, more than 1,700km from the fires.

Calgary’s airport in the neighbouring province of Alberta has become a reception centre for evacuees, in a massive operation without precedent in the region.

The fire is about 15km from Yellowknife and could reach the city over the weekend, authorities warned, especially as weather conditions hampered the work of firefighters.

‘I was tearing up’

Evacuees were registered as soon as they land in Calgary’s domestic flight terminal, some arriving with their pets.

Volunteers and local officials offered food and water before transferring them to nearby hotels serving as shelters for the displaced.

“I am very stressed and overwhelmed, and so is my whole entire family. We’re all tired,” said Sangris, as she waited for a bus with her family to take them to their assigned hotel.

“My daughter is barely two years old. Everything is new to her, she doesn’t understand what’s going on. And my son, he’s five, he’s saying ‘I want to go home’,” she said.

“We’re trying to make him understand we can’t go home and there’s a very serious situation back home.”

When authorities told her on Thursday to prepare to evacuate, Sangris said she tried not to panic.

“I wanted to stay strong for my children.”

But nerves and fear got the better of her.

“I was tearing up. I didn’t want my son to see me,” she said.

When she decided to leave, she said she packed her valuables, such as the first clothes her daughter wore after birth, photos of deceased relatives, and pictures of her children at school.

Although she said she is exhausted from the ordeal, she remains optimistic.

“I’m just hoping we all make it through this together and that we all go home safe and sound, and that Yellowknife isn’t burned down.” – AFP, August 19, 2023.