Oil field worker flees wildfire but finds house back home destroyed

Photo: Norm MacDonald.

Bruce and Cathy MacDonald have made it out of the Fort McMurray wildfire in Alberta and arrived back at their home in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia in time to see smoke still coming from what’s left of their home there.

“There’s absolutely nothing left,” Norm MacDonald, Bruce’s brother, tells the CBC. “There’s ashes and some timber. Pretty much everything was lost in that fire.”

Norm MacDonald said his brother, who worked in the camps north of Fort McMurray, didn’t find out about the fire until he was en route home from Alberta early Friday morning.

“That night, his plane had left at about 1 o’clock in the morning, and he hadn’t found out about his home until actually the next morning,” said Norm.

“It’s kind of ironic, in a sense, because we had been in touch back and forth over the week with all the raging fires out there that were taking place.”

A GoFundMe page to help overshot its initial goal.

“In our community, we have people that are suffering with various illnesses, cancers and different things that are going on are also being fundraised for,” said MacDonald.

“It just seems that, no matter what the extent of being, it’s not tapped out, that people are still trying to help.”