Canada’s Prime Minister landed in Fort McMurray today to assess the damage caused by a raging wildfire that forced the evacuation of more than 88,000 people in the country’s oil sands capital.
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He also promised residents of the city that the federal government would help them rebuild.
Melissa Blake, mayor of the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, which includes Fort McMurray, said it was critical for Trudeau to tour the burned neighbourhoods.
The prime minister was presented with his own Fort McMurray fire jacket by Chief Darby Allen on the tarmac of the global airport prior to a flight to Fort McMurray, about 435 kilometres to the northeast. Officials say more than 2,400 homes and other structures were destroyed and another 530 were damaged, but 25,000 were saved.
The more than 80,000 evacuees have begun receiving direct financial assistance from the Alberta government and the Canadian Red Cross as officials asked for patience in getting residents home.
After the tour, Trudeau will travel to Edmonton to hold a news conference with Premier Rachel Notley, who is expected to press the prime minister for enhanced employment insurance benefits for the Edmonton area as a effect of the wildfire.
The prime minister has said he did not want his visit to interfere with firefighting efforts.
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“Right now the residents aren’t there, but there are hundreds and hundreds of emergency workers”.
Trudeau was shocked after an aerial tour.
“I’m very, very interested in not just what we manage to do to get through this one but what we can do around minimizing the impacts of the next one because it will come”, Trudeau said. He said it’s important to go home and show people that the federal government will be there for them in the reconstruction.
Local officials say it will be 10 days before they can even produce a plan for resettlement, much less allow people to return to a place where small fires are still erupting.
“It’s very hard for me as an Albertan” to witness the damage, said Hehr, who represents a Calgary district.
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Fires are not uncommon in the region at winter’s end, but are generally not as destructive as the McMurray blaze, which burned 2,415 square kilometers (1,500 square miles), according to fire services in the province. It’s expected to burn in forested areas for at least a few more weeks.
