“This was a beast, an animal, it was like a fire I’ve never seen in my life”, said Allen who has proven to be as skilful with the media as he is with a wildfire.
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The gas has been turned off and the power grid is damaged, while the water is not drinkable. We could see the fire coming down the hill to our house.
Reuters spoke to a homeless evacuee from Fort McMurray, Terry MacDuff, who said he had nothing to lose in the fire and was “living like a king” at the Lac la Biche evacuation center.
The fire that has ravaged some 161,000 hectares of Alberta moved far enough away from the evacuated town of 88,000 people to allow an official delegation led by the province’s premier, Rachel Notley, to visit.
Approximately 2,400 buildings were lost in the blaze, but many more-as many as half of the buildings in the city-could have been destroyed had firefighters not contained the fire.
“It’s going to be a very extreme fire hazard kind of day”, he told CBC News.
“I just want to let the people know that we’re in pretty good shape”, he said.
Since last Sunday, the fire has eaten up more than 750 square miles of Alberta forest and shows no signs of slowing down, while about 100,000 Canadians were forced to evacuate their homes near the Fort McMurray inferno. “Some of the Irish guys that work with a construction company in Fort McMurray got a call to go back to try and assess damage”.
CHRIS WATTIE/AFP/Getty Images Burned out homes are pictured in the Abasand neighborhood of Fort McMurray, Alberta.
Despite that, she says the community is not safe.
However, Morrison said that firefighters “continue to hold the line”, protecting all populated areas, including Gregoire Lake Estates, Fort McMurray First Nation, Anzac and the city. No deaths or injuries have been reported since the fire started last Sunday.
Syncrude oil sands project said it would shut down its northern Alberta operation and remove all personnel from the site due to smoke.
Officials do fear that the wildfire could double in size and reach a major oil sands mine as well as the province of Saskatchewan.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has vowed a multi-year commitment by the national government to rebuild Fort McMurray.
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Oil sands companies, which have high fixed costs, are expected to work as quickly as possible to get production back online, but face the challenge of many staff and suppliers being displaced by the evacuation.
