According to Morrison, the additional firefighters will help secure hotspots in the community, and control and secure fires around critical infrastructure.
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“The phased re-entry for all oil sands camps in the regional municipality of Wood Buffalo is underway”, the provincial government announced. There has been no damage to Suncor’s assets, it said.
The wildfire just west of Janvier is estimated to be 146 hectares, but is being held. It has capacity of 350,000 bpd at its upgrader and Mildred Lake and Aurora mines.
Athabasca Oil Corp resumed operations at its Hangingstone site following a shutdown on May 5, before which production volumes exceeded 9,000 barrels per day, the company said in a statement on Tuesday.
There was a disappointing “touch of rain” in the area over the long weekend, he added, and the forecast is not calling for any in the coming days.
Extreme fire conditions, however, remain high in the province’s northeast with the blaze covering almost 523,000 hectares, including 2,500 in Saskatchewan.
There are now almost 2,000 firefighters helping with the situation and another 1,000 firefighter are expected in the next two weeks with some coming from as far away as South Africa.
The fire is expected to be Canada’s costliest disaster for insurers and is dealing a blow to Alberta’s energy-dependent economy, already reeling from a market downturn for oil.
While it’s expected that a boil-water advisory will be lifted in Fort McMurray by the end of June, meaning residents will be able to drink from their taps again, it will be years before other elements of normalcy are restored for residents, said Danielle Larivee, Alberta’s minister of municipal affairs.
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Crews fighting the wildfire up at Fort McMurray are looking for more rain, but the conditions are hopefully starting to turn. But she cautioned the plan was dependent on whether threats from the wildfire still existed, which late last week approached 500,000 hectares in size and expanded across the border into Saskatchewan.
