'We could have lost lives:' N.W.T. fishing lodge wasn't warned of approaching fire

Last Friday evening, the moment Bryan Chorostkowski's family had been fearing for three years arrived.

Ten adults and 11 children piled into boats, fleeing a forest fire raging toward Namushka Lodgea fishing lodge about 53 kilometres east of Yellowknife.

As the fire consumed 34 years of memories, Chorostkowski urged the others to get clear of the smoke, yet he stayed nearby, drifting alone offshore, stunned.

"I just kind of sat there in the boat by myself, kind of in disbelief of what was actually happening.

"For the last three years we've worked so hard at working on a fire break and sprinkling the whole place and for it to just all happen so fast, without any warning I just was kind of in disbelief."

Now he's looking for answers from N.W.T.'s Department of Environment and Natural Resources about why there wasn't any warning.

2 record fire seasons

The Reid Lake forest fire had begun just the night before, consuming a cabin on Pickerel Lake and triggering evacuations of the Reid Lake territorial campground and Camp Connections. The cause of the fire is still under investigation.

On Friday evening, Chorostkowski got a call from his brother's wife, saying the wind direction could be moving the fire south from Reid Lake. His response was to start the second set of sprinklers, thinking he was just being cautious.

After all, the fishing lodge, located on a point between two bays and accessible only by float plane in summer,had survived the last two years of extreme fire seasons in the Northwest Territories.

They had started firesmarting the property five years ago, getting in inspectors from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources for advice, doing things such as clearing the underbrush and skirting the cabins so embers couldn't get underneath.

In the record-breaking 2014 fire season, when 385 fires burn 3.5 million hectares in N.W.T., one of them was the Consolation Lake fire, which approached the Reid Lake area.

ENR recommended Namushka Lodge build a firebreak.

"So we as a family, my brother, myself, my dad, we went out there and just started givin' 'er," said Chorostkowski.

In 2015, the lodge had a close call with another wildfire the family fought hard to keep at bay, with help from ENR ground crews and aircraft.

"Last year we thought we'd done as much as we could to protect the place, and if the fire's going to come, it's going to come, and hopefully we've done enough," he said.

"Obviously it wasn't enough. Where the fire wants to go, it'll go."

• N.W.T. wildfire destroys a homestead 27 years in the making

'Get in the boat. It's coming'

It happened about 30 minutes after the phone call. A couple of the adults had taken the majority of the children out into the lake on a pontoon boat to go fishing. Chorostkowski and two friends got out a second pump and began laying out more sprinklers and hose.

"I was just about to start the pump and we started to hear this roar like a jet engine. And we looked over and about 500 feet away, where the winter portage comes onto the lake, we could see flames.

"I said to Rob, tell the girls we need to go. Get in the boat. It's coming and we'd better get out of here."

The eight who had remained at the lodge put some food for the children in a cooler, grabbed a few other sentimental items and headed calmly for the boats, he said. But within no more than 15 minutes, he says, the fire was jumping the fire break from the south end, burning structures and equipment at the edge of the camp.

From the boats, Chorostkowski ran back to try and salvage the family's photo albums. His wife yelled to him that a friend had already grabbed the albums.

"My mom has religiously kept those photo album books up to date and they mean a lot to us but I wasn't sure if they had got all of them, so I ran back into the main lodge. I grabbed the guest book, the sign in book. I was trying to find all the old ones and I couldn't find them.

"At that point I looked out the back window of the kitchen and the flames had already started to consume the wash house which is only 10 feet away.

"I could hear my wife panicking so I knew I had to go."

After fleeing the fire, the group ended up dispersed in multiple boats on the lake. They reunited withthe pontoon boat carrying the children and eventually made their way to the family cabin on another part of the lake, where Chorostkowski had directed a Twin Otter to pick them up.

'How did we not get any warning?'

Chorostkowski says he has a lot of questions for ENR, primarily: "How did this happen and how did we not get any warning?"

He said that in the previous fire seasons, officials kept in contact and he was kept abreast of developments almost daily.

Officials from ENR told media Monday that high winds Friday produced extreme fire behaviour, pushing the blaze to travel 10 kilometres to Harding Lake, and Namushka Lodge. The high winds and smoke kept firefighting aircraft on the ground, officials said.

"They had a helicopter in the air when we were fleeing and my brother came out with our [Cessna] 185, minutes after the fire consumed our lodge, plus the Twin Otter came out so I don't know where that idea is even coming from," said Chorostkowski.

Friends visiting the lodge had previously asked him what would happen if the fire came close, he said.

"And I said, ENR will put a helicopter down here and they'll tell us that we need to evacuate, or the fire's coming. They'll give us warning.

"There was nothing."

He said someone from ENR phoned on Saturday to confirm the lodge had been destroyed by the fire.

"We lost a lodge, a family lodge, and that's tragic, but it could have been a lot worse. In everyone's opinions that was out there, we could have lost lives.

"There were 11 kids out there. Tenadults. If we wouldn't have been out there and seen that fire coming from 500 feet, it would have come up from behind and it would have been It would have been chaos."

ENR declined CBC's request for an interview.

It told media on Monday that it's hiring two analysts from Alberta to investigate how it responded to the fire that destroyed the lodge.

Chorostkowski says his family plans to rebuild.