Separation, detour and death: couple recounts harrowing Fort McMurray escape

Tom Clarke was sleeping off a night shift when his wife woke him up and said "we gotta leave."

Sue Clarke left to get their daughter and son, both of whom live in the Abasand neighbourhood, just down the road from their own home in Beacon Hill.

That left Tom, originally from Fort Smith, N.W.T., on his own for about eight hours.

"They were stuck downtown and I managed to get out south with all the animals."

The entire family arrived safe in Sherwood Park early Wednesday evening.

"It was quite an interesting journey," Tom said.

'Fire was already licking at the houses'

When Sue and her kids, both adults, first decided to try to get out of Abasand, it was already too late.

"The fire was already licking at the houses."

She, her daughter and her son were driving in a train of three vehicles.  

By the time they got to the bottom of the Abasand hill, the highway south was closed.

"They were going to try and send us north but my son had said, 'Whatever happens Mom, go to the Walmart parking lot.'"

Sue headed in that direction, only to face a five-hour wait for the highway to open.

'They opened my door and said, 'just please keep her safe''

On her way, Sue watched as police officers broke down a door into a house and carried "a little disabled lady" outside.

Her vehicle was the first the officers came to.

"They opened my door and they said, 'just please keep her safe.'"

The woman didn't speak English.

"I just looked at her and I just promised her that I wouldn't let anything happen to her," Sue said through sobs.

Sue managed to find out from the RCMP that they were evacuating the hospital and they had buses there.

"I found the first East Indian bus driver I could. He was able to communicate with her. And I delivered her safely to the bus," she sobbed.

"She just really had no idea what was going on around her. It was just so terrifying.

"But people have to come together and you have to be there for each other when we've all lost so much."

Death on the highway

More troubling, said Tom, was that once they managed to make their way out of town, they were among the first to come across a collision that left two dead.

"It happened just in front of us," Tom said. "It was quite scary."

"It was just devastating," said Sue.

Home may be lost

Neither Sue nor Tom are sure they've lost their house. About 80 per cent of the Beacon Hill neighborhood, where they live, burned to the ground, but they did hear one report that their street may be OK.

Nonetheless, it was a day neither will soon forget.

"Being separated from your loved ones when you're trying to get to them at that time is one of the most horrifying feelings that a person can feel," Sue said. "Besides watching your community burn to the ground."