When locals on the far west side of Jasper, Alta., returned to their homes last August, they suddenly felt a great distance away from their small mountain town.
Some have taken to calling the area the “Republic of Stone Mountain,” a reference to the name of the multi-family village that still stands in a neighbourhood otherwise levelled by a wind-whipped fire that destroyed a third of the town one year ago.
An expansive gravel dirt pit sits where there was once dozens of homes spanning several blocks.
Lee Declercq’s wood-clad home sits in a back corner with four other houses that survived the fire.
He believes his home should have burned, calling it a “wooden matchstick.”
“It was just lucky,” says Declercq.
Though these homes withstood the flames and scorching temperatures of the fire, the lives of those living there have been dramatically altered.
From his elevated porch, Declercq watches excavators roll around the gravel pit while hummingbirds come and go from a feeder hanging from the deck’s overhang.
The blackened exterior of the home’s wooden siding and roof reveal just how close flames were to consuming the rustic abode he has shared with his wife, Betsy, since 1982.
The fire destroyed 358 homes and structures in Jasper.
“I sometimes almost cry when I look out and see people surveying their burnt properties,” says the 76-year-old retired railworker.
He considers much of his life a fairy tale: the concept for their home started in the mid-1970s as he and his wife, newly in love, dreamed about building a home on the empty slope looking out at the Rockies.
“We sat up on this hillside on a rock, holding hands, thinking, ‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could have a house here?”‘
That their home withstood the flames is not entirely a miracle, says Jasper fire Chief Mathew Conte.
Much of its fate was dictated by Declercq’s decision to turn on a rooftop sprinkler when an evacuation order was issued on July 22, 2024, Conte says. About 5,000 residents and 20,000 visitors were forced to flee.
Declercq says he hauled his ladder to the side of the house and crawled the sheer slope to turn it on, dousing the property non-stop for two days before the fire reached the town.
“Their property was pretty moistened by their sprinklers,” Conte told a group of reporters earlier this week.
Jasper’s volunteer firefighters had also set up a long sprinkler line around the edge of town, Conte said, and wind patterns quickly shifted the flames away from that group of homes.
He said the entire neighbourhood would have been decimated had Declercq’s home gone up in flames and spread.
Darrell Savage, a railway worker who lives three doors down from Declercq, says the “Republic of Stone Mountain” name started circulating when evacuees returned.
“It’s so separated from Jasper now,” Savage said.
Except for a single street lamp that has been glowing 24 hours a day since the fire, Savage said the street is pitch black at night.
He said he’s felt guilty being one of the few in his neighbourhood who returned to a stable situation.
“You definitely feel like you don’t deserve it,” Savage said. “Anybody’s house could have survived, right?
“Why did these ones survive?”
Savage said he hasn’t talked to firefighters and doesn’t understand why his home is still standing.
“I don’t know. It seems like a miracle to me.”
