Officials say no fire-related deaths or injuries have been reported since the blaze – which now covers 350 square miles – began besieging the city Monday and Tuesday.
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As police and military oversaw the procession of hundreds of vehicles, a mass airlift of evacuees also resumed.
Volunteers hand out bottled water and direct wildfire evacuees as they arrive at Edmonton International Airport. Despite the 1,110 firefighters, 145 helicopters, and 22 air tankers working to extinguish the blaze, rain and cool weather are the only things that will stop it, said an official identified only as Morrison.
“As we did after the Slave Lake fire and the southern Alberta flood, cabinet today authorized the government to provide emergency financial assistance to people who have been displaced”.
“We’re not out of the woods yet”, senior wildlife manager Chad Morrison told CBC.
“The Government of Canada will match every dollar donated to the Canadian Red Cross in support of the Fort McMurray relief effort”, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in a statement. Two months without appreciable rain has left vegetation dangerously dry.
“There were times you came over the hill and you couldn’t see anything and just hoped the person ahead knew what they were doing”, the newspaper quoted Glynn as saying.
Environment Canada forecast a 40 percent chance of showers in the area on Sunday.
Syrian refugees are helping raise money for Fort McMurray residents who were evacuated after a wildfire swept through their Alberta town.
Jim Dunstan was in the convoy with his wife Tracy and two young sons.
“We haven’t forgotten about you and you’re safe”, the government said on Twitter.
“What people in that region have gone through in the last couple of days is literally hell on earth”, Rona Ambrose, leader of the opposition Conservative Party and an Albertan, fighting back tears as she addressed the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa. “They realize that they’ve got their lives, they’ve got their family and they’ve got the opportunity to rebuild”, said Blake.
Nearly 500 made the unsafe journey past the charred remains of cars and buildings, feeling the heat through their auto windows from grass fires still burning on roadsides and flare-ups further away.
However, RCMP said in a news release Friday that one local man had been arrested in a home in the city after they responded to a break and enter call. “We’re going to be here for weeks and weeks”.
The people being evacuated – for a second time, after first abandoning their homes – had fled this week to an area north of the city where oil companies have lodging camps for workers.
Some 14,000 families had registered with the Canadian Red Cross, authorities said.
Burrell planned to catch a flight back to British Columbia.
About 25,000 evacuees moved north in the hours after Tuesday’s mandatory evacuation, where oil sands work camps that usually house employees were used to house evacuees.
About 8000 people will be airlifted out, officials said, but most are expected to drive south, with police escorts, once officials determine the highway is safe, likely on Friday. At that point another convoy of 50 cars starts the trip. The beast is still up, it’s surrounding the city. The region is home to the third largest oil reserves in the world, after Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.
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More than 1000 firefighters are struggling to contain Canada’s massive blaze which is now three times the size of Wellington.
