ROTHENBURGER: He barely escaped Lytton inferno, now he wonders what’s next

Jumping off the couch and running outside, he came across an RCMP constable who told him to get out fast. Quievillon quickly put his two dogs, a border collie named Bailey and a German shepherd named Endika — like the Great Pyrenees puppy he’s now adopted — into his truck, then ran back into the house to get his cat Minou (that’s French for kitty).

By the time he emerged again a few seconds later, the flames had reached his yard, his truck was on fire and the police officer was gone. Unable to get to his dogs, he ran out onto the street and tried to flag down passing drivers, but nobody stopped.

“I didn’t know what to do,” he told me in his thick Quebecois accent. “I was surrounded by fire. I tried to stop other cars. I was suffocating with the smoke. I can’t go anywhere. I thought, ‘I’m going to burn here.’”

He figures he was there for about five minutes after the last car passed, holding onto Minou, turning around and around desperately looking for a way out but with nowhere to go. Then, what he calls a “miracle” happened — a van emerged from the smoke; the driver stopped and yelled at him to get in.

The driver of the van was later reported in the media as being “a stranger” but, in fact, it was Jan Polderman, Lytton’s mayor.

“That guy saved my life,” Quievillon said. “He was like the captain of a ship, making sure everyone else got out before he left. He was the last person to leave. He had to drive through the smoke and the fire.”

That night Quievillon stayed at the Lytton Pines Motel on the outskirts of town, finally getting to bed about 1 a.m., tired and hungry. At about 6 a.m. his cat hid under the bed. Sensing something must be wrong, Quievillon looked outside and saw the fire coming towards the motel. Seeing a fire truck nearby, he alerted the crew to the threat, and they were able to stop it.

A few days later he was sent to stay at the Sandman in Abbotsford and that’s where he’s been ever since, living in a small suite with Minou and now Endika. He borrowed a few hundred dollars from a friend to buy a second-hand van but hopes to save up and buy a “well-maintained” older truck to replace the 2003 F-150 he lost in the fire along with his two dogs.

“I loved those dogs,” he said. “They were my family. I loved them so much.”

Quievillon also lost all his tools — drills, saws, a jackhammer, a new table saw that was in the back of the truck — about $18,000 worth, he figures. He’d also recently bought a new couch and TV set and had money in the house he was going to use to pay his income taxes. Photos and mementos are gone, too.

Fortunately, when he made his hasty escape, he had his wallet in his pocket and was able to buy some clothes.

A friend posted Quievillon’s situation on a Tsawwassen Facebook page, and donations of new and used tools flooded in to replace the ones he lost. He’s putting them to good use, driving up to the Pines Motel a couple of times a week to work on some of the rooms in need of repair so they can be used by residents and firefighters.

He does the work for free and confesses he’s never charged much for his services. “It’s not always about the money in life.”

The 60-year-old has a form of spina bifida that limits how much physical labor he can do so he often helps others by showing them what to do.

Quievillon’s hope is to get back to Lytton to live. He was there for four years before the fire, and says the people are “really nice” and the cost of living much more affordable than Burnaby, where he lived before he lost everything in a fire there.

He left Quebec for B.C. in 1999 and, despite now having gone through two devastating fires, he believes it’s the best decision he ever made, and he wants to help rebuild Lytton.

For now, though, he’s in the Sandman in Abbotsford, almost three hours away, wondering what will happen after Sept. 7 when his subsidized reservation is scheduled to end. He knows other evacuees complain that not enough is being done but he understands the challenges of getting the town rebuilt and on its feet.

“Even if they bring in temporary housing, they still have to hook up sewer and water.” Before that, the townsite has to be declared safe and free from toxic substances.

“What’s going to happen with people like me that are single? I just want to know where to go.”

He said some people say the mayor, the man who rescued him from the flames, isn’t doing enough but Quievillon doesn’t buy it. “It’s hard for the mayor to give information if he doesn’t have any, until they have the OK to go back in.

“People are complaining but if they want to give shit to somebody give it to Ottawa.”

As for Polderman, he well remembers that chance encounter with Quievillon on the way out of town that awful day. “The town was fully engulfed.”

He and his council continue to work with senior levels of government on getting people back home. A plan for temporary housing is in the works until the townsite is ready, and the objective is “to make people as whole as possible.”

As a “very grateful” Quievillon says, “I just want to go back.”

Mel Rothenburger is a former mayor of Kamloops and a retired newspaper editor. He is a regular contributor to CFJC Today, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a director on the Thompson-Nicola Regional District board. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.

Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or Pattison Media.

by Mel Rothenburger

ROTHENBURGER: He barely escaped Lytton inferno, now he wonders what’s next

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