B.C. wildfire evacuee takes to social media to humbly say, ‘Thank you’

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FALKLAND (NEWS 1130) — How do you show appreciation for everyone who helps you stay calm when a raging forest fire forces you out of your home?

Matthew Heneghan, a writer who’s been living in Falkland since October of 2020, has done it by posting a video on YouTube.

“Just express gratitude to everyone and anyone that might have been involved. The people that were giving up their time were just average, everyday people that just wanted to make a difference.’

His family was ordered to leave their home Aug. 4 — hours before the White Rock Lake fire exploded and destroyed several properties in nearby Monte Lake and Westwold.

“I am eternally and forever overflowing with gratitude to those men and women that are out doing back-breaking, labour-intensive work in impossible conditions. Being a firefighter at the best of times is an insanely arduous job and I have nothing, but the utmost respect in the world for those men and women that are able to do that, but it’s also important to recognize those that don’t always get the same level of gratitude and recognition,” he says.

“There is so much for me to be grateful for in these current moments and I will be keeping my eyes out for volunteer opportunities to give back and help rebuild these communities because I feel like if the roles were reversed, there would be an army of people out here doing that for me. ”

The army veteran grew up in Salmon Arm and joined the military when he was 18.

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He was living in Toronto in 2017 and working as a paramedic when he was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder, then lost his mother to suicide that same year.

He was writing a blog as part of his therapy and started a podcast when he was contacted by a publisher.

His book A Medic’s Mind was released in 2019.

That’s when he returned to Salmon Arm for a signing attended by the woman who is now his partner and they’ve been living together since last fall.

“A girl that I went to high school with. We didn’t really talk too much in high school, but she came to the book signing. I was hooked immediately. I was blown away. So, we stayed in contact and voila, last October, I came back.”

Heneghan, who has been sober for nearly three years, says the past few weeks have been extremely difficult.

“I’ll tell you, if there was ever a time that I was really tempted to drink, it was during that crazy emotional stress of living in a hotel room with two kids. The oldest is ten and the youngest is six. I had a couple of nightmares in the nights that I was there and I’ve never had nightmares in front of kids before and I hate the nightmares. I hate being a burden to other people. I hate waking other people up and when it’s kids, it makes me feel even more crummy and crappy, so I was really falling into kind of a depressive state of mind.”

He adds sharing his thoughts on YouTube has helped.

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“It’s really therapy for me. It helps me prioritize and digest my feelings. I can’t reach people on the ambulance anymore, but if I can reach people with my story or my word and it connects with them in some way, it really gives me a sense of fulfillment. Something really beautiful did happen. One of the volunteers actually watched the video and sent me a message. I’m connecting and talking with one of these people that helped me. It was amazing.

Heneghan is back in his home now.

While still covered by an evacuation alert, he says he’ll never forget the sacrifices others have made for his family.

“To make sure that we, people they’ve never met, were well taken care of. They were giving us water. They were asking us how we were doing. Telling us to take a deep breath and that was deeply humbling for me. It made me feel really, really lucky,” he says.

“The hotel staff. I don’t think I passed by their desk without them stopping me to ask how I was doing because they knew we weren’t there for a vacation. They really went out of their way to say, ‘Do you need anything? Is your room okay? How are you.'”

He’s also hoping his YouTube video helps current evacuees struggling to cope, as well as people who may have lost their homes.

“Where I have the ability to kind of give my voice, my gratitude might reach somebody else. I just want to let them know they’re heard, they’re seen and we’re here. It felt like the right thing to do.”

Heneghan tells NEWS 1130, at times, he and his girlfriend felt overwhelmed by the support they received.

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“When we left, you’re leaving not really knowing if you’re going to see [your home] again. I remember feeling what that felt like. That unease and uncertainty and then coming home there was a nice jubilation and relief that saturated our thinking space, but to contextualize and think about people that are maybe 20 kilometres down the road who lost everything. That’s deeply heartbreaking and there’s a humility that comes into our being grateful to be home. It definitely isn’t without consequence for sure.”

He says he also sympathizes with some ranchers in Monte Lake angry more wasn’t done to help them save their properties.

“It’s a highly emotional situation. I mean these people just lost their homes. I honestly think I’d be angry too and I’d be questioning everything. I know when it comes to grief of any kind, there is this incredulity that hits you. When my mom passed, I wanted to know why? What happened? What the failures were and I wanted to blame something — anything.”

Heneghan goes on to say, “This is a crazy, unprecedented year where the number of fires that were going, the kind of climate that we had, with how dry it was, the resources are only so much and only so abundant and so, I think that these firefighters are truly doing impossible tasks and my heart breaks for those people in Monte Lake.”

As for how he feels about a federal election campaign happening as parts of B.C. are literally on fire, he says that just adds more stress to an already tense situation.

“Politicians, as a whole, I’m not a huge fan. Doesn’t matter if it’s red, blue, orange, green, whatever. I have an overall distrust, not anti-government by any means, but it’s very polarized,” he says.

“So, calling an election now is probably a matter of timing and I don’t think it’s being done tastefully. I don’t think it’s the right thing to do and I’m very upset with the current administration for doing it. I don’t have a lot of respect for them calling it at this current time.”

Heneghan adds many people impacted by the White Rock Lake fire are having a tough time coping with possibly losing their homes, let alone thinking about who to vote for on Sept. 20.

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