“It jumped that without thinking about it. This was a beast. It was a fire like I’ve never seen in my life”.
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About 1,600 homes and other buildings in Fort McMurray were destroyed by the raging fires.
But the fire is still 0% contained and burning “out of control”, the Alberta Agriculture and Forestry department said. That compares to 30 percent of homes destroyed in Slave Lake, Alberta, the largest fire disaster in Canada’s history, where a fire ripped through in 2011.
Rachel Notley said the hospital and most schools were intact but 2,400 out of 25,000 structures had been burnt.
One minister said the efforts might be “turning a corner” but warned that much work lay ahead.
“This is going to be a long-term endeavour because at the moment there is no power and gas, no palatable water supply”. There’s risky hazardous material all over the place. “It will be essential to make sure that can be done safely”, he said.
There is no timeline to return evacuees, but the provincial government sent in a team Monday to do preliminary planning.
He says that between 40 and 50 per cent of Fort McMurray could have been destroyed if firefighters hadn’t been able to hold back the flames at key points.
“Within the community itself I expect over the next coming month or two that they’re going to be able to get a very good handle on the fire situation”, Alberta wildfire prevention chief Chad Morrison told reporters on Saturday.
First, they will need to conduct a top-to-bottom review of the damage and replace vital infrastructure – a process which they acknowledge won’t happen quickly. “Our treatment plant is functioning”.
Penney moved to Fort McMurray 26 years ago from Newfoundland and says that no matter how bad the damage is, he won’t pack up and leave. Officials said Sunday they have completed the transport of thousands of evacuees and reached a turning point in fighting a massive wild…
“We’ve had several members lose their homes”, said Nick Waddington, president of the local firefighters union.
There have been no deaths from the fire but Ms Notley became emotional when she paid tribute to two evacuees who died in a vehicle accident during the evacuation.
The mass evacuations forced as much as a quarter of Canada’s oil output offline.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has vowed a multi-year commitment by the national government to rebuild Fort McMurray.
Rob Brekke, the city of Edmonton’s co-ordinator for emergency services, says the preventative measures helped reduce the number of people reporting symptoms between Sunday and Monday.
Although Fort McMurray is know primarily as a hub for Canada’s oil and gas industry, the city is also home to hundreds of small- and medium-sized businesses – everything from shops to services – which were largely left behind with their owners left everything to flee the wildfires.
The full extent of property losses in Fort McMurray has yet to be determined, but one analyst estimated insurance losses could exceed C$9 billion ($7 billion).
Suncor said late Sunday it is beginning to implement its plan for a return to operations.
A week after the main blaze started, firefighters were looking to the weather for help yesterday as cooling temperatures and rain slowed the spread of the fires, which have cut Canada’s vast oil sands production by half.
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Husky Energy, controlled by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka Shing, said it has completely shut its Sunrise facility, which has a capacity of 60,000 barrels a day.
