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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.

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.

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.

The Canadian Red Cross is deploying its Emergency Health Clinic and a team of nine aid workers to Haiti jointly with the French Red Cross in collaboration with the Haitian Red Cross and the Haitian Ministry of Health. 

Fire races through a picturesque valley in southeast B.C. People flee the charging flames, some in just their bathing suits after a swim in the Kettle River. In just a few hours, in August 2015, a raging wildfire forced people from Rock Creek to Westbridge to drop everything, and evacuate.

The Guay-Bourbonnais family home, in Marieville, Quebec, was completely destroyed by a violent fire. 
“I didn’t want help. I just couldn’t accept that I was a disaster victim,” recalls the mother of the family, Caroline. However, in the midst of the chaos, two Red Cross volunteers approached her and said “This disaster has affected you. It’s okay to let yourself be helped.”