'No children were hurt, just their toys': Fort McMurray man finds hope among the ruins

Chuck Howie's house survived the wildfire.

Fourteen days later, it was gutted by an explosion.

No one knows why.

But on Thursday, as he surveyed the damage for the first time, he found a glimmer of hope among the ruins.

There in the rubble sat a child's tricycle, and the sight of it washed away a good deal of the bitterness.

"There is some beauty out of all this," Howie said, as he pulled rotten drywall from the remnants of his home in Dickensfield, in the north end of Fort McMurray. "Seeing the innocence of a child's toy amongst all this wreckage, it brings things into perspective.

"No one was hurt. No children were hurt, just their toys. And I'm good with that."

The deafening blast that destroyed Howie's family home happened May 17, far from the frontlines of a wildfire that forced the evacuation of the entire city. The explosion blew up his neighbour's home on McConachie Crescent, heavily damaged several other houses, and left dozens in the surrounding block with dangerous structural damage. The cause remains under investigation.

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Howie got word of the explosion while his house was still in flames; his friend, a Fort McMurray fire captain, confirmed the news.

The pair had served together in Croatia years ago, and remained close long after their military service ended.

"We were both in the former Yugoslavia together in 1993, and he was here fighting the fire on my house, which was pretty amazing, said Howie, who still serves as a regimental sergeant major for the South Alberta Light Horse Regiment.

When Howie looks at what's left of his house, it reminds him of the war zones he and his friend once surveyed as soldiers.

​"I've been in a few hotspots in the world, and that's what it looks like," he said.

"We would do patrols (in Croatia), and there would be a really nice house, a really nice house, and then flattened, an entire area where a battle waged through. And then back to a nice neighbourhood again. And it's very similar here.

"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see what probably happened."

The back wall of his house was demolished by the force of the explosion, leaving the blackened skeletons of the family's bedrooms exposed. Hunks of shrapnel remain lodged in the stairwell. Exposed wires hang from collapsed ceilings. The floors are knee-deep with muck, as dripping pipes turn debris into layers of stinky sludge.

The backyard is a wasteland of ash, marked by gaping holes of debris that rained down from where his neighbor's house once stood.

As Howie surveyed the destruction with his family, he had words of caution for his wife and children. 

"I knew what I was walking into, but I warned them, the sights are one thing, but it's the smells that are going to hit you first. You're going to have a hell of a time. You'll be able wash that out of your clothes, but not your mind."

He plans to rebuild, and knows there will be plenty of people willing to help.

"This is a vibrant city with tens of thousands of people here that are truly amazing," he said.

"The bonds that are formed here, this car wreck, this train wreck that we're going through right now, is going to bring this city together."