‘We're going to go back home, to what? To where?': devastated Denare Beach resident
Hollie Olivier is waiting to return to a home that isn't there anymore.
The 44-year-old learned her home in Denare Beach, Sask., burned to the ground on Monday due to a wildfire.
'We have nothing,' Olivier said Tuesday at a gathering for wildfire evacuees at Assiniboine Park. 'We're going to go back home, to what? To where?'
Olivier, the chief operating officer at Flin Flon Credit Union, was in the middle of overseeing the installation of two ATM machines when she learned the village — about 20 kilometres southwest of Flin Flon — was under an immediate evacuation order.
She helped guide staff out of the building before swooping by to pick up her 64-year-old mother and 84-year-old grandmother from their Flin Flon homes before heading back to Denare Beach.
When she arrived, she frantically grabbed a few items, which included family photos and the ashes of her son, who died six years ago. It was the last time she would see her home in one piece.
'We didn't think we were at risk in Denare,' Olivier said. 'We figured we were OK and that we would be going home, and all of a sudden, Denare Beach is on fire, and we lose our home. There's absolutely nothing left.'
Olivier arrived in Winnipeg at 6 a.m. late last week with her mother, grandmother, and husband, who met up with them after he left his job in Snow Lake.
They are staying at her mother-in-law's house. Olivier's 20-year-old son has joined them while her 26-year-old daughter's conservation job means she's helping co-ordinate firefighting efforts in Nopiming Provincial Park.
'I'm very fortunate to have a family that is so supportive, but I'm ready to go home,' Olivier said.
She said she thinks about her home every second of every day.
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'Every day you look at something in somebody's house and you think, 'Oh, I had that, too. It's the simplest of things, just basic necessities that we don't have.'
Olivier said her family will meet with their insurance agent and figure out the next course of action.
She said her aunt, uncle, cousin, neighbours and friends have lost their homes, as well. Some of her friends who spoke to insurers said they were told it would take around three years to rebuild.
'What do you do for three years when you have nowhere to stay? How do you move on with your life?' said Olivier. 'I know we'll make wherever we live a home, but it's just devastating that I have no home.'
massimo.deluca-taronno@freepress.mb.ca
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