Small business owner searching for answers after losing home in Jasper wildfire

She did not know it at the time, but Anna Murray said goodbye to her home when she was evacuated from Jasper.

Murray’s home was one of 358 buildings destroyed by the wildfire that tore through the town and national park last week.

Now, she is trying to put the pieces back together and figure out what comes next for herself and her business.

It started on the evening of Monday,  July 22nd when Murray and her partner, Paul, were spending a normal evening in her home.

“We knew the fires were burning, there were three fires we had been watching. Two of the three had been extinguished, one they were working at trying to control,” she said. “I thought we were getting into the clear, what a relief.”

Then they noticed strong winds and dark orange skies looming outside, though for whatever reason they did not get the emergency evacuation alert sent to their phones.

“I went outside to bring my dog in and he was covered in ash. Paul called one of his friends who works for the municipality and his friend said ‘It is go time, we have to get out of here,'” Murray recalled.

Looking online, Murray read the town had just five hours before the fire was expected to arrive – though this was later corrected to the town having five hours to evacuate.

“We grabbed food and water and whatever documents I could think about grabbing,” she remembered. “We basically thought we had 20 minutes to get out.”

“Then we left. It was one of those things where you think we will be back in a few days. We didn’t think it would be as severe as it was.”

Murray, Paul, and the dog, Boston, traveled from Jasper to Kamloops that night, arriving at around 4:30 in the morning with the eventual goal of reaching Edmonton where Murray’s daughter was.

The trio had briefly stopped at the emergency reception centre in Calgary, which is where she learned the fire had reached the townsite.

She later found out from photos posted to social media that her home had been completely destroyed in the fire.

“I know some people may not have appreciated seeing it through a photo like that, but for myself knowing was easier than not knowing,” Murray said.

“Then at least I could start processing that, grieving the loss, and starting the insurance process.”

When media were allowed into the town for a small tour after the fire had passed through, Murray said Global News happened to have taken photos of what was left of her property.

“I could see my home in rubble. I could see the shell of my cargo trailer and my wood burning stove crumpled in a big pile.”

Jasper Rock and Jade, Murray’s business, survived the fire – though she says it may as well not have.

“My business relies 100% on tourism. I can’t see how we will have any sort of tourism at all in the foreseeable future,” she said. “I don’t know what the future of my business holds. So far there has been no assistance or word of assistance at all to support the business community from any level of government.”

Not knowing when she can return to the town, damage assessments for insurance claims are impossible to make.

“Everything is a hurry up and wait situation, we can’t do much at this point,” Murray said. “In the meantime all of the business owners in the community are without income. We don’t qualify for EI as a business owner. We have no income coming in, no clue if we are going to have to pay rent for our spaces.”

This means Murray will be on the hook for her mortgage with no income after her two month payment deferral ends.

Adding to the stress, her home insurance will only cover the cost of what replacing the home would cost, not the cost of the home.

Murray explained due to Jasper’s inflated housing market, this means “the insurance I will be receiving to replace the structure is less than half of what my mortgage was. I am still on the hook to pay mortgage on a property that is literally a pile of rubble.”

As a home and business owner, Murray has not had any more contact with officials in the area or access to information than anyone else.

Her future looks even more murky.

She explained that, without a home in Jasper, she will need to find work and a place to stay close enough to the town that she can still access her business.

“It is impossible to try and plan how this works. Hinton (67 km away) only has the ability to house so many people, they only have so many jobs. Where else can I be to be close enough to deal with the business side of things and find somewhere to live and work?” she said.

“It feels pretty bleak. It feels like the fires may have well as taken the business too, because it feels like I lost both.”

Now, looking back on it all, Murray and other Jasperites are asking themselves if this could have been prevented.

“What more could have been done to prevent this? We all knew this was coming. Everyone has been talking for over ten years how this fire will come, it was not a matter of if but when,” she said. “There was some fire smarting done, but the crew was small. There were budget cuts. Were these measures enough? Could they have done more?”

Using Lytton, which was leveled by a wildfire in 2021, as an example, Murray asked “Why did our officials in different levels of governments not learn from this and take more proactive measures if they knew this fire was coming?”

She also criticized the federal government for deploying the military to Jasper to help – a day after the town had burned.

“Some accountability needs to be taken at all levels of government. We keep seeing a reactive response to situations, I don’t see a lot of proactive action taken,” Murray said.

While critical of government decisions before and after the fire, Murray was deeply grateful for all of the firefighters and personnel who have been fighting to protect the town and park.

While there is no timeline, the criteria for public re-entry into Jasper has been established.

Today (Wednesday) has been declared Day of Caring for Jasper, every dollar donated to the Canadian Red Cross will be matched by the Alberta and Federal governments.

The Red Cross has also announced one-time payments of $750 for Jasper evacuees.