When you live in Northern Alberta, the threat of forest fires is something you get used to.
“I didn’t initially realize how severe it was,” said 29-year-old Jessica Masse, a resident of Fort McMurray. “Earlier that day, I was playing outside with my daughter and my mother-in-law. The skies were blue,” Jessica recalled. But in just hours the blue skies had disappeared – and were replaced with smoke.
128
Latest Posts
In the middle of the night on Sunday, October 9, a house fire left six people in Bishop’s Falls without a home. Luckily, the residents of the small town in Newfoundland all had places they could stay that night. That morning, Thanksgiving, the local Red Cross was called.
Susan Floyd found four small stowaways among the shivering dogs, cats, possums, pythons and other pets that she rescued recently from the floodwaters following Hurricane Matthew. The day after the hurricane hit South Carolina, Floyd was helping the Marion County Animal Shelter and others find animals in flooded homes around the towns of Mullins and Nichols. In a boat, Floyd arrived at one submerged property to find a frightened mother Chihuahua and her new puppy.
Micheline Lagrenade has been volunteering at the Haitian Red Cross branch in the town of Jeremie for the past 24 years. Micheline is a single mother of four who up until recently was living in a house in a coastal neighbourhood of Jeremie. Her home was destroyed by Hurricane Matthew, and she’s been staying with her four children at a friend’s house.
The Red Cross blanket hanging on the wall of Jason Grant’s new home is a reminder of the help he received when a fire forced him out of his previous home. In May, a fire damaged his central Winnipeg apartment building and he was forced to leave his home. “Basically, I had nowhere to stay,” said Grant.
It has been one year since we began welcoming Syrian refugees to help them build new, more stable lives in Canada. With your help, the Canadian Red Cross was able to partner with organizations that support refugees across the country, such as the Immigrant Community Support Centre in Montreal, to help Syrian families settle and integrate into their new community.
A house fire is difficult for anyone, but for the Bilal family it was especially traumatizing as they had only been in Canada a few months. Mohammad, Afraa, their two children, Naya and Nael, and Mohammad’s brother, Ali, arrived in Canada in February as refugees, after fleeing the war in Syria.
In July, a fire broke out in the family’s home. Fortunately, no one was injured, but most of what little they did have was destroyed.
Since Hurricane Matthew hit the southwest of Haiti, not much remains of the crops that provided livelihoods for people living in the countryside. The hurricane hit during the second main harvest season, so it will take many months for crops to grow back enough to be eaten.