What was once somebody's home now sits a pile of ash. It's that very same ash that Cpl. Lorne Doktor is sifting through to see if they he can salvage any mementos left behind; and hand them over to their rightful owner.
RCMP has released a video that shows a behind the scenes look at the clean-up in Slave Lake. Doktor and others are going through each burned-down home before the rubble is cleared and sent to the dump.
In the video, Doktor does a play-by-play of the task at hand. The video was shown to Slave Lake evacuees last week.
"There is nothing left," said Doktor. "I've never seen a fully functioning house burn so hot that there's only one foot roughly of ash."
"People that had what they thought were fire safes, that we're going to protect their stuff, they were just destroyed in the fire," said Doktor. "We opened up every one that we found and it was either a gun that was melted or the paperwork didn't exist."
Dokter said in one instance, they found a safe that was blown into a nearby forested area. Its contents were safe and will be returned to the homeowner.
While there may not be much left in the ash, Doktor says any little thing they find may have some sort of sentimental value. They plan on keeping everything separated that they find in each lot. In the home that's featured in the video, a porcelain doll was still intact, but had melted glass all over it. A portion of a child's tea set was also salvaged.
"That's not junk; that's someone's life," said Dokter. "I have children myself and they have toys like this and this might be a part of healing for a young girl to understand what happened here. That's important."
The RCMP say they understand that people are itching to get up close to their property but that for safety issues, residents will have to wait a little bit longer.
"Please be patient with us here, we're working through this," said Dokter. "We want to get you into your houses so you can start healing or into your area so you can see the damage and start healing as soon as possible."
To view the video in its entirety, click here.
