A university professor who studies natural disasters like wild fires says the people displaced from their homes will need a recovery process.
Dr. Judith Kulig says evacuees will go through a grieving process when they eventually return home.
“After a disaster where there is a loss of homes and there needs to be some kind of recovery. People go into a phase of denial and they can’t believe what’s happening and they start to really work together and move it forward,” says the University of Lethbridge professor.
“And then, even a year after the event they can have a reaction to that event, so they’re experiencing it all over again and may have a set back at that time.”
During a two-year span Kulig interviewed evacuees from the 1999 Mallard Fire that threatened La Ronge.