As the province reflects on the one-year anniversary of the devastating fires that swept through Slave Lake, Edmonton firefighters are remembering what it was like to battle the inferno.

Edmonton Fire Rescue sent over 200 off-duty firefighters, as well as reserve trucks and support vehicles to Slave Lake over the course of the fire starting May 15 and staying until May 30, said Edmonton fire rescue chief Ken Block, adding that the Slave Lake fires would be in the forefront of firefighter’s minds during the anniversary period.

At the peak of the firefighting efforts, 59 Edmonton firefighters were on the ground, battling the blaze that consumed 40 per cent of the town and caused the evacuation of 7,000 residents.

Edmonton firefighter Jack Wozney got the call at midnight May 15, 2011 to get over to the provincial operations centre and start gathering resources from all corners of the province to send to Slave Lake.

“I couldn’t imagine what they were going through. I was talking to (Slave Lake) fire chief Jamie Coutts on radio and he asking to send whatever we can. ‘Please,’ he said ‘I need replacement for myself.’ He was so emotionally and physically drained,” Wozney recalled.

“(Coutts said) ‘Everything is on fire here’. You can’t imagine going there and seeing block after block of residences wiped out. It was really eerie feeling when I first arrived and saw the devastation,” he said.

He described seeing nothing but ash and dust after the intense heat of the fires incinerated almost everything. Whole blocks that were destroyed save for one house; or whole blocks that were saved except for one house in between.

He eventually joined firefighters from across Alberta on May 20, 2011 to work on putting out hotspots and prepare what was left of the town for the return of essential service workers.

Coutts told Metro that the deployment of firefighters to Slave Lake came right when they were needed most.

“Edmonton firefighters were key. They came in large numbers and at a critical time. We were able to get them in town and out in the rural area. It was perfect timing,” he said.

“It’s great that career firefighters and volunteer firefighters in Slave Lake could work together and accomplish everything that we did in such a short amount of time.”

Volunteers from across the province and across Canada, including more than 1,000 firefighters, travelled to Slave Lake to help with the immediate aftermath of the fires as well as the re-building.

“It was wonderful to hear so many people talk about how Albertans responded as well, like first responders, volunteers, the Red Cross,” Premier Alison Redford told media after an official ceremony in Slave Lake to mark the anniversary of the wildfires. “It’s not the sort of day we ever expect to have in Alberta and Albertans really came through.”

Wozney was in Slave Lake when pilot Jean-Luc Deba, 54, of Montreal, was killed when his helicopter plunged into the lake. Deba was the first and only fatality of the fires.

“We were on scene right away, but he lost his life. The other guys, they didn’t forget it either. It was very emotional for something like that to happen,” he said.

Slave Lake and the surrounding region will be marking the first year anniversary with a series of events this week.