Paul Gray says at first, when he saw something black lying on his lawn Sunday in Nova Scotia, he didn’t know what it was.
He’d already noticed flurries of grey and white wildfire ash falling from the sky, but was curious about the black object, so went over to take a look.
There, lying on straw-like grass parched from drought conditions, was a charred but otherwise intact maple leaf.
“When I first saw the leaf, my heart sank,” said Gray, who lives in South Greenwood, about 26 kilometres as the crow flies from the Long Lake fire in the Annapolis Valley.
The fire, which began Aug. 13, has destroyed buildings and forced more than 1,000 people from their homes. As of Wednesday, it had grown to 8,278 hectares, or 82 square kilometres.
Nova Scotia has been experiencing very dry conditions, which have exacerbated fire risk and prompted a ban on certain activities in the woods.
Gray said in a Facebook post that the photo is “cool,” but also “scary and sad.”
“It’s that truly Canadian symbol of a maple leaf, that icon that we all wear proudly and are proud to be Canadian,” he said in an interview. “To see it in such a state, to see it blackened like that, burnt to a crisp, I think that’s the moving part, the realization that we’re burning. As a country, we’re burning.”
His photo has been shared a few hundred times on Facebook, with people commenting that it is “iconic,” “sobering” and “heartbreaking.”
Gray said he was surprised the leaf would travel that distance from the wildfire area.
On Sunday, high winds fanned the flames of the Long Lake fire, which doubled in size from Sunday to Monday.
“I knew it was a windy day and I knew it was going to be a bad day, but that kind of really made it sink in. It’s just amazing that it can go that far.”
Gray said he just snapped two quick photos with his phone and carried on with his day.
“I could have went and dug out my digital SLR and got a nice photo lens and done a proper photo, but I didn’t. I just was on my way down to feed the chickens and figured I’d just take a quick picture of it and keep going.”
While Gray is far enough away from the Long Lake fire that he doesn’t worry about danger to his home, he said he’s generally concerned about the wildfires and the impacts on Canadians.
“I have friends, I have co-workers who are evacuated or self-evacuated from the area. I know people who fight the fires. I think we all probably know somebody who’s in some way affected by it,” he said.
“Not good, not good for anyone. So, you know, a lot of concern, just, yeah, saddened by the fact that we have to go through it.”
