New BrunswickSome New Brunswickers were on standby this week for evacuations and left scrambling to decide what to save from their homes, as wildfires continue to tear through parts of the province.Beyond essentials, combing through worldly goods is overwhelming, Irishtown residents sayLaura Flight · CBC News · Posted: Aug 14, 2025 3:10 PM EDT | Last Updated: 5 hours agoIf a spark catches fire near you, it could turn into a blaze that threatens everything you own — and deciding what to bring during an evacuation has proved a harrowing experience for some Irishtown residents. (Submitted by Ervin Bighetty)With wildfires popping up every day thanks to tinder dry conditions and record heat most of the week, some New Brunswick residents are reflecting on what material items are most important if they have to get out of their homes.Fire crews have contained the Irishtown fire that threatened nearby homes, but residents of the Maple Hills area had been advised on Sunday to prepare to evacuate on short notice, so what to take was on their minds.When Irishtown resident Gloria Mazerolle looked around her home, she said, it was an awful feeling to try to decide what things she would take with her.”Everything is important to me — so I kept thinking, ‘What do I bring?'” she said.In the end, she packed a small bag with her mother’s coins, a few photos, and some sentimental items. The Department of Natural Resources recommends everyone have an emergency bag ready to go that includes water, food, flashlights, a radio, batteries, first aid kits, masks for smoke filtration, prescription medications, pet food, and cash. But survival items aside, Irishtown resident Elaine Steeves says she also struggled to decide what to pack as she prepared for a possible evacuation from her home. Steeves runs three home-based businesses.Elaine Steeves worried that she would lose her reflexology supplies. When the time came, she only packed her medication. (Emily Brass/CBC)”It was such an overwhelming sense of panic for me that I just couldn’t deal,” she said. “So I just didn’t pack a thing.”With all of her inventory for her baking business, and her aromatherapy and reflexology business, stocked in her home office and living room, Steeves only packed her medications. “This has definitely made me think of putting in place now a place where I can just grab everything, just grab and go from now forward,” she said.Lessons from past evacuationBocabec resident Geoffrey Howson credits firefighters with saving his home from a fast-moving forest fire that tore through his community in 2023. (Roger Cosman/CBC)A wildfire near Saint Andrew’s forced Geoff Howson to leave his Bocabec home in 2023.”It was very scary,” he said. “You were feeling quite vulnerable because you just didn’t know what was happening.” During that fire, Howson and his wife took their dog and left their home behind. With such short notice, they packed pretty light.”It was so fast, I’ve got to be honest, we didn’t think very well. The RCMP said ‘You’ve got to get out of there.’ So we took our dog and we took our two selves.” If he’s ever in a similar situation, Howson said he would pack essential documents beyond just the passports he took in 2023. Their house survived the fire, but Howson said his perspective on what really matters changed after this experience. WATCH | What to include in your emergency kit:How should you prepare for an evacuation?Whether fire, flood or hurricane, there are ways you can prepare to evacuate your home when danger reaches your doorstep.”Possessions are [temporary]. If something happened to me later on, I can’t take them with me,” he said. “What’s more important is your friends and your relationships.” Howson’s advice for those near the current fires is, first and foremost, “be very practical and mindful, and take a deep breath.” “Do what the authorities say, get those bags ready, get your essentials,” he said.”And be aware that your volunteer firefighters, the police, the public safety officer, they’re going to do everything possible to make sure everything will be okay.” ABOUT THE AUTHORLaura Flight is a reporter at CBC New Brunswick in Fredericton. You can reach her at laura.flight@cbc.ca.With files from Emily Brass
What to pack when you might have to evacuate a wildfire on short notice
