- 9 hours ago
Category
đș
TVTranscript
00:00And I was ordered to evacuate because of this incredibly fast-moving wildfire.
00:05It's time to go now.
00:07I can see the flames cresting over the top of the hill right now.
00:12It doesn't look good.
00:17I'm Todd Talbot, and after 10 seasons of Love It or List at Vancouver,
00:21my wife, Rebecca, and I invite you to join us on our building journey.
00:24We are building a net-zero passive house on the shores of Okanagan Lake
00:28in beautiful British Columbia.
00:29A resilient, energy-efficient, and architecturally stunning house.
00:34And even though this story doesn't end the way we planned it, it was an adventure.
00:49The moment everything felt super intense and real
00:53was when these unmarked cars came ripping down the driveway,
01:00I immediately knew that things were very serious.
01:05The guys jumped out and basically said,
01:08it's time to go now.
01:10And, you know, the tone in their voice was,
01:12it wasn't a negotiable kind of conversation.
01:15I made the decision to get everybody out there because it looked like it was going to become
01:20a problem sooner than the forecasting was predicting.
01:23We literally go door to door and convince them that they should leave.
01:27All the way up until that moment in time, I hadn't prepped anything because there was a part of me that really wanted to stay.
01:36And maybe a little bit of disbelief that this was actually going to come and affect our little bay.
01:44I started going up Westside Road.
01:50I texted Rebecca because she had the kids up in Vernon, which is about an hour north away.
02:03I had two phone calls as I was leaving.
02:06One of them was from Jillian Harris.
02:08She was kind of watching the fire from her house and they also had a farm that was being threatened by the fire as well.
02:17And my dad called me.
02:20Anytime I mentioned my dad, I get emotional.
02:24I don't get emotional about the house, but he phoned me to kind of just check in,
02:27make sure everything was okay because they didn't know what was going on.
02:31I arrived at the hotel and of course your phone is blowing up with people messaging you,
02:38asking you like, are you okay?
02:41What's going on?
02:43We were talking about it in the hotel room and the kids would start to get upset.
02:46I said, we're safe, you know?
02:50And I fully believed it was going to be okay.
02:54I think Todd felt differently because he was there when the evacuation happened.
02:57I was exhausted.
03:00I hadn't slept the night before.
03:02So by the time we went to bed and we kind of processed things as a family, it was probably 12.30 at night.
03:14So we got up in the morning and we were in a position where we were kind of like in limbo,
03:20not really knowing what to do next.
03:23When I woke up, I went on my phone.
03:25I somehow thought the news would just show the A-frame and how it was, but that doesn't happen.
03:32No one goes, oh, and your house is okay or not okay.
03:36That doesn't show up on the news.
03:38We just figured, you know, that having some sort of normalcy to the morning was good.
03:44So we checked out of the hotel.
03:46I texted my brother who, um, his wife is from Vernon.
03:52So we asked him for a recommendation for breakfast.
03:57Oh, man.
03:58And, uh, he told me of this great spot.
04:03Hey, what are we going to do with our stuff?
04:08It was kind of kiddy corner to this used bookstore.
04:13And, uh, Rebecca and the kids love bookstores and I can't stand them.
04:20I always joke I don't even know how to read.
04:22So we had breakfast and they thought, look, why don't we go over to this bookstore and
04:28we'll poke around and maybe there's a good book that they can pick up and read.
04:33So they're in there.
04:34I'm literally standing on the corner texting people madly and trying to get information.
04:40My neighbor Nathan sends me a clip of the CNN coverage.
04:47It was our A-frame, uh, engulfed in flames.
04:54That was the confirmation that the house burned down.
04:58I walked into the bookstore and I just showed the video to Rebecca.
05:04No one else knew what we were doing.
05:08Um, I took the kids outside and I sat on the bench in front.
05:13I thought they should know what's going on.
05:15And so I showed them and I think that's where their emotion came out and they were in tears.
05:27I can't consolidate for myself clearly that the place that I was sitting in yesterday morning,
05:35you know, doing the routine, getting the breakfast, all that kind of stuff,
05:42is the place that was on the video on fire.
05:46It's hard for me to have those two things be the same.
05:52There was something about, like, just being around some more family.
05:55And so we decided to go and stay with Rebecca's sister and her family, uh, just outside of Calgary.
06:03So we drove there the next day and, and I think that that was the moment where we could all just take a deep breath.
06:11Honestly, I'm more upset for people who lost their homes.
06:15And, you know, when Todd comes to me and says,
06:24it's all gone.
06:28I've, I feel him.
06:31I feel that for him.
06:35It's not for me.
06:37It's for him.
06:38And, uh, I just can't imagine how it feels to be him right now.
06:49It was so impactful to see the fire chief from West Kelowna in New York talking to the United Nations,
06:55so eloquently explaining the incredible heat and power of this fire.
07:01Four weeks ago, my community was devastated.
07:03A firefighter said to me afterwards that it was like fighting a hundred years of fire all in one night.
07:11And then strongly advocating for more preventative measures.
07:15Over $20 million was spent reacting to my fire, not to mention the insurance losses, which could be triple that.
07:22What could we have accomplished if we used that same amount of money proactively?
07:33Watching what happens when a fire travels at 50 kilometers an hour.
07:40You can read studies, you can read books, you can take courses,
07:43but there's absolutely no replacement for that experience.
07:47The entire department and the entire community has learned lessons.
07:52The hardest days weren't during the fire.
07:55The hardest days are now when you drive through these neighborhoods and wonder,
07:59like, why did this happen this way?
08:00And you have time to think about it and question what you did.
08:09The property burned down on August 18th.
08:12It's one month to the day, and we're finally allowed back in.
08:18As we were driving along the highway and looking down into those neighborhoods
08:21that looked sort of like the fire has come through there,
08:24this just looks way worse to me.
08:26Look at this.
08:30It looks unreal.
08:33I think this was one of the epicenters of the fire.
08:36It looks like a movie set.
08:37It does look like a movie set.
08:38It doesn't even look like this actually happened.
08:41We'd been asking when we would be able to get back in,
08:52but due to safety reasons for mainly electrical, gas lines,
08:57even damage to the road on the way out here,
08:59they wanted to make sure that everything was safe.
09:01Jesus.
09:02Oh, my gosh.
09:03Look at this.
09:03It is crazy.
09:09Three years.
09:24I almost feel kind of numb to the situation.
09:27I mean, we've known for a month with a couple photos what it's going to look like.
09:31So you come out here and you're like, yeah,
09:33it kind of looks like what we saw in the picture.
09:36But at the same time, you're just like, I don't know.
09:42It's so.
09:44I think when you see it in a picture and it's this big,
09:46and then when you come here and it's the size of the entire A-frame,
09:52it's rolled up over there.
09:53Yeah, and like seeing that charred out fur beam.
09:56Yeah.
09:57Right along that, you can see all of the screws that we put into the TNG.
10:03Like, look at how many are in there.
10:05Yeah.
10:05And the bottom of each beam is still there.
10:07Lots of people ask me about the fur beams that actually held the whole structure up
10:14and the fact that those were wood.
10:17In order to protect them as well as we could,
10:20we'd ordered metal cladding that would clip around the beam.
10:26It was on the to-do list, but we just hadn't finished it.
10:28The whole roof, I mean, this roof was designed to ward off fire coming from above,
10:38and now it's just this crinkled, twisted mess.
10:45It's hard to know even what to look at.
10:47I think that the fire came up underneath, essentially,
10:51and then started to burn from the inside out
10:54and create this incredible kind of kiln-like effect
11:00that made this building implode.
11:05Those little footings are the beach room?
11:07Those are all the beach room right there.
11:09Wow.
11:10If the fire came from above, we were really protected
11:13in terms of an incredible buildup of non-combustible insulation
11:18and then a metal roof on top of that.
11:21So there was good defense mechanisms from the front and the top,
11:27but this kind of underbelly, which was still exposed,
11:30we hadn't put the insulation underneath yet.
11:32We hadn't put cladding that would be non-combustible from down below.
11:36It's funny that the drywall is still sitting here.
11:43It's burnt all on one side.
11:45This is what we had left to put up.
11:47Yeah, because the drywallers were here,
11:48and you were working on it, and that's why this is here.
11:52I wanted to be able to see where the bunkhouse was
11:55and what it looks like now.
11:56But it's just a big hull of an A-frame roof
11:59blanketing on top of it,
12:01and really that's kind of symbolic of this whole thing.
12:04It's like this A-frame took over our lives
12:07for the past three years,
12:09and it overshadowed everything.
12:10We suffered at home without Todd,
12:14and Todd suffered through so many struggles.
12:18It just feels like a really big waste.
12:20The little things are upsetting to me.
12:37The details, the care and attention,
12:40the beams that were all hand-sanded and stained perfectly,
12:45and the door.
12:47I didn't even put it in the door.
12:48Like, it's sitting there in a box.
12:50Like, that, to me, is just so sad.
12:56I've never dealt with this before.
12:58I don't know how it plays out.
13:01The part that sucks is that you're thinking about
13:04how you will use this space in the future.
13:08Our whole goal was to have Christmas there,
13:10and sitting in that living room,
13:11and now you're like, that living room's gone.
13:13I would joke with the kids that, you know,
13:17you're never allowed to sell this.
13:19This is going to be handed down from generation to generation,
13:22and we didn't even make it through the first generation,
13:26let alone subsequent ones.
13:29The other thing that people ask is,
13:33well, the foundation's okay.
13:35But what people don't realize is that a fire that strong,
13:39and it's blasting heat right down on the rock and the foundation.
13:45It dries out so quickly that the concrete spalls,
13:49which essentially explodes,
13:51and the rebar inside loses its integrity,
13:54and so does the concrete.
13:55So you end up in a situation where there's a lot of question marks
13:59about whether you can even use any of that,
14:02and whether you have to literally rip it off of the rock
14:06before you would rebuild again.
14:08So it's easy for people to say,
14:11well, you've got to rebuild.
14:13You've got to.
14:13Like, this story's great.
14:15It's rise from the ashes.
14:16And there's a part of me that does get excited about that.
14:20But there's the other logistical part and financial part
14:23that you go, wow, this is overwhelming.
14:26Whew.
14:28Yeah, those bits of blown glass are pretty neat,
14:32but also, like, so crazy.
14:35But that's what's left of the windows.
14:36I can't help but think, like, how do you, like...
14:41Approach this?
14:42Yeah, how do you figure out what to do next?
14:45I mean, okay, so you clean it up, and then what?
14:48Do we even want to go back to our bay and rebuild there?
14:53Is it worth it?
14:54Forest fires for a long time were something that happened outside of communities.
15:11And they threatened assets, like timber,
15:15tens or hundreds of kilometers away from any homes.
15:19Like, something changed.
15:21And now these fires are either starting inside of our communities,
15:26or they're starting just outside and bearing down on them,
15:29like this fire did to us.
15:31There have always been wildfires.
15:38I believe, and from the evidence that I've seen,
15:41they are acting differently.
15:44Fires are traveling faster,
15:46and they're consuming more fuel per hour.
15:54There's so much rockwool here.
15:56Where was it all going?
15:57All underneath?
15:58Yeah.
15:59So, having gone through the fire, and it's still sitting there,
16:03if we had all that insulation in underneath,
16:06would it have protected it?
16:07I don't know.
16:09The non-combustible elements that we had incorporated already,
16:13the metal roof and the rockwool insulation,
16:16both of those are essentially still intact.
16:20It's why our site looks so messy,
16:22as opposed to other sites, where everything burned.
16:25I think where we're at from a climate perspective,
16:27I think we're past the point of debating
16:30whether that has an impact on what's going on around the world.
16:34Once you live through it, you watch it,
16:37you learn more about how these fires behave,
16:40why they are so devastating,
16:42why they're happening so much more frequently,
16:44it makes it much more real.
16:47The fire chief from West Kelowna said it very simply,
16:50we are taking all of our resources and time,
16:53and we're fighting the wrong end of the battle.
16:56We're fighting the fire here,
16:58and then we're spending all this money
16:59to rebuild through insurance, etc.,
17:03and people's time and effort.
17:05It seems much more logical to be addressing it at the beginning,
17:09where we're building, how we're building.
17:12We're not going to fix it completely,
17:14but we could take those resources
17:17and attack the problem up front.
17:24It's interesting doing this documentary
17:26because I think it's easy to forget what happened here,
17:31all these teeny tiny details.
17:33The cabling that goes across.
17:35Oh, yeah.
17:35I just put that in.
17:38And I think, what a waste of time.
17:40This is like all of that just perfectionism.
17:45It is such a disaster up there right now.
17:49It's a traumatic event for everybody.
17:50I mean, the problem with being here right now
17:52is that if you look out at the lake,
17:54everything feels fantastic,
17:56and you remember why we bought this property,
17:59and then you look up at the hillside,
18:01and you think, you know,
18:02how many years does it take for the vegetation to come back?
18:05Everyone else is going to be building,
18:07so there's going to be lots of construction.
18:10It's a beautiful location,
18:12and now the fire risk is reduced.
18:15There's less fuel.
18:16The reason that fire traveled as fast as it did
18:19was because there was a lot of dead fuel.
18:22Fires are natural.
18:23They're going to happen.
18:24We put ourselves in the line of that
18:25by building communities
18:27and not necessarily thinking forward
18:29as to what if that fire does happen.
18:30There's lots to consider.
18:38Yeah.
18:50We're kind of wrestling with the idea
18:52of what we might build
18:54and, of course, the conversations at home.
18:56We've got the kids involved.
18:58Kesser really doesn't want us to rebuild here.
19:01Very against the idea.
19:02Adamant that we don't.
19:03It'll all burn down again, he says.
19:07Which, to be fair, is a possibility.
19:09So we know we're not going to do the same thing again.
19:14That's the part we know.
19:16Are you on board with...
19:17I'm very much on board.
19:19Are you really?
19:20Absolutely.
19:20I actually thought that you were on the fence,
19:22and I was trying to convince you.
19:24No, I was just worried about...
19:27I don't know.
19:27Just his feelings.
19:28Yeah, essentially.
19:29We let our children run the show.
19:31Not really.
19:33But we do take it into consideration.
19:34We consider them.
19:34I think what we do is
19:38try and capture the things
19:41that we loved about what we did last time.
19:45But not build from scratch.
19:46No.
19:47And I think that that's where
19:48prefabrication comes in.
19:49I think that that's where
19:50the world's going in terms of construction style,
19:53which is very cool.
19:54We can still embrace passive house construction,
19:57make it net zero.
19:58It kind of lessens...
19:59You can prefab it as a passive house?
20:01Oh, yeah.
20:02We're just bringing all these same people together.
20:04To just look at it
20:05from a different perspective.
20:07Well, I think in the same way
20:08we embraced this concept of passive house,
20:11like high-performance building,
20:12we now need to just bring in
20:14this other piece,
20:15which is resilience.
20:16I mean, it was secondary to,
20:19you know, in the way we were building it now,
20:20but it needs to be equally important.
20:25That's exciting.
20:26We like a challenge.
20:27We had so much support.
20:35We had so many messages,
20:36so many people checking in,
20:38so much kindness headed our way.
20:42It was overwhelming.
20:44This many people care?
20:46Yeah.
20:46It affected.
20:59It touched a lot of people.
21:02Definitely think the totes should rebuild.
21:05The most fun part.
21:07We as humans are very resilient,
21:09and even though there hasn't been a fire,
21:11there is always a rebirth.
21:16And some type of build
21:17needs to happen on this property.
Be the first to comment