'It looked like a war zone': Life in Pressy Lake 2 years after the fire

The North Bonaparte Road turn off from Highway 97 to Pressy Lake deep in B.C.'s Interior, is flanked by evergreens and leafy brush.

It's green for as far as the eyecan see, until the road takes a sharp turn, and all the trees are black.

Charred trunks are a reminder of the Elephant Hill wildfire that blazed through in 2017, burning down 33 homes in the community 180 kilometres north of Kamloops.

Lorne Smith and his wife Cheryl Merriman, both 60, lost their home in the fire and had to build a new one.

In 2017, the coupleretired to the region from Vancouver and had only lived in their house a few weeks when the wildfire struck.

Smith still clearly remembers the day they returned to Pressy Lakeafter the evacuation order lifted.

Before and after the Elephant Hill wildfire

5 years ago

Duration 0:26

Lorne Smith and Cheryl Merrimans home was one of 33 to burn down in Pressy Lake during the Elephant Hill Wildfire in 2017. They have since rebuilt a new home and continue to live on the same property.

"It looked like a war zone, like the old World War Two videos that we used to watch when we were younger and you'd see where a city had been bombed," said Smith.

Two years after the fire, some greenery is coming backand homes are being rebuilt as families try to move on.

"It's a thing I never want to go through again and I can only relate itto something thatpeople went through, [in] a war, or a flood, or where they lost everything, and you were on the run for months, and months, and months," Smith toldRadio Westhost Sarah Penton.

When he and his wife returned to their property in September of 2017, there were only a few things left behind, including a plastic parrot lawn ornament and a melted wine glass.

"Seeing our place gone and still seeing lawn chairs out on the front lawn and our little parrotsticking in the dirt and everything else, it was just almost surreal.

"The house is gone, the garage is gone, but yet the front of the lawn looked like it was when we left it."

Rebuilding

Smith and Merriman built a new house, which they moved into this year.

"You can build a home, but everything that you've had over 40 years, your children's, your family's, memories, everything is gone. That's hard," said Merriman.

The couple and their neighbours are now more proactive about protecting themselves, by trimming branches off of trees that are close to the ground, keeping their grass short and watering the land, said Smith.

However, whenever they see smoke andwater bombers, it still gives them some anxiety.

"Weknow somebody is going through what we went through two years ago. So it kind of is disturbing, because we know what it's all about and the feelings, and the emotions, and thatit's going to be sad for somebody else," said Smith.

Leaving a mark

Across the gravel road, Cathy Robinson, 63, and her husband Bob, 65,waited 10 months after the fire tomove into a new modular houseon their property.

Their new home overlooking the bright blue lake means a lot to Cathy Robinson.

"I wanted a little piece of Canada for my kids, my grandkids, to come and catch frogs and go boating and go swimming like we did when we were kids," she said.

However, a new house doesn't mean the fire has been forgotten.

Cathy Robinson recalls giving her grandchildren wooden fairy houses as gifts to hang in the yard. She was shocked by what the kids painted on them.

"They're all aflame. There's flames coming out of the roof. There's flames all over the houses," said Cathy Robinson.

"Youdon't think it's affecting the kids, but itjust does. And that's how it comes out for them, like in their drawings or different things like that."

Recovery: Stories From The Ashesis a four-part series that explores the aftermath of B.C.'s devastating wildfires and the affect they've had on people who've lost their homes over the past four decades.It's produced by Sarah Pentonand airs on CBC Radio One'sRadio WestJune 10 and 11.