Her announcement came two days after 8,000 oilsands workers north of Fort McMurray were evacuated when increasing winds and high temperatures caused the rapidly advancing wildfire nicknamed the beast to come within 15 kilometres of oilsands facilities, and destroyed the Blacksand Executive Lodge, a 665-unit oilsands housing complex.
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“The fire is not under control by any means”, Morrison told the news on Tuesday, and their hopes for rain have been dampened by a dry forecast. The blaze covered an estimated 5,229 square kilometers (2,019 square miles) on Tuesday, more than four times the size of New York City.
The Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, which includes Fort McMurray, released a neigbourhood-by-neighbourhood schedule for the phased re-entry of wildfire evacuees to the northern Alberta city.
Work camps that were evacuated are being inspected for re-opening, and oil sands companies are looking at when they can resume operations. “We believe that getting our employees back to work is an important part of the process to get things back to normal in Fort McMurray”. All will return “in a phased manner over the next few weeks”, it said on Facebook. The company had cleared out three sites that account for the bulk of its upstream production: the base plant mine, MacKay River and Firebag facilities.
Morrison said so far the blaze has burned the same amount of forest as all fires consumed in Alberta previous year. Mandatory evacuation orders for several oilseeds camps north ofFort McMurray were lifted, municipal officials tweeted, though the town itself remains under a mandatory evacuation.
“We expect the mining operations will be up to turnaround levels later this week and in situ operations back to mid-turnaround levels next week”, CIBC analyst Arthur Grayfer said in a note to investors.
“About a month ago, Governor Poloz said that it would take a major negative shock to provoke the Bank to cut interest rates again – could the Alberta wildfire be that shock?” said Robert Kavcic, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets.
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The wildfire has forced the evacuation of more than 800,000 people from the area.
