Climate anxiety high as B.C. pupils return to school in fire-ravaged communities
CTV
As students across British Columbia gear up for their return to school next week, parents in communities devastated by wildfires are grappling with what that may look like for their kids.
Alesha Campbell's five-year-old daughter Maddie used to look forward to “Forest Fridays,” when she and kindergarten classmates would walk through the woods behind Rose Valley Elementary in West Kelowna.
But now most of the forest has been burned by the McDougall Creek wildfire, part of a fire complex that has damaged or destroyed at least 189 properties. It came close to destroying the school, too.
“Their playground and the field is fine, but their outdoor forest playground is gone and that was a really big part of the school,” Campbell said. “It's really hard to lose that.”
As students across British Columbia gear up for their return to school next week, parents in communities devastated by wildfires are grappling with what that may look like for their kids. Some pupils have been evacuated from their home communities, while 17 B.C. schools were still under evacuation orders or alerts, the Education Ministry said Tuesday.
Campbell said she and her husband took Maddie to see the damage near the school on Monday. They thought it was important for her to see it before classes resumed.
“It gives us a chance to kind of understand what she's walking into,” Campbell said in an interview.
West Kelowna fire Chief Jason Brolund announced Monday that fire officials had lifted the evacuation order for the school, allowing teachers to return to begin organizing their classrooms.
