About 700 people remain out of their homes due to a mandatory evacution order south of Fort McMurray.
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Wildfire experts add 40 active fires larger than 10 hectares are now burning in the province.
“We are seeing some bombers flying through laying fire retardant and once the smoke clears the water bombers will go up to put water on the fire”, he said. “The fire didn’t really extend in size, it didn’t gain in ferocity, in fact it calmed down overnight”.
Some evacuated residents spent the night at MacDonald Island Park, a recreation centre in Fort McMurray.
Officials with Alberta Forestry told CTV News that firefighters have been called in from Edson, Rocky Mountain House and Slave Lake to help battle the blaze.
The province has deployed two air tanker groups and eight helicopters to fight the flames as crews and heavy equipment try to contain the one-square-kilometre fire in very thick smoke. A voluntary evacuation was ordered for the community of Gregoire. You don’t have to be a fire chief to think that’s a fairly unsafe situation.
There are also air quality advisories for Fort McMurray-Fort MacKay and Peace River-Fairview-High Prairie-Manning regions.
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Darby Allen says, “Yesterday, we were faced with a large forest fire with a west wind, and nothing in between that and this town”.
