Earlier in the day Alberta premier Rachel Notley said the city’s gas had been turned off, its power grid was damaged and the water undrinkable. The fire started May 1 and has destroyed more than 772 square miles of northern Alberta forest.
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The region has the third-largest reserves of oil in the world behind Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.
A wildfire ripping through Canada’s oil sands region blazed for a seventh day on Sunday as officials warned nearly 100,000 people who fled the area that they would not be returning home soon.
Efforts are being made to protect the Suncor site, and non-essential staff have been leaving the area.
Many Fort McMurray residents first evacuated north of the city to oil company camps. The situation was tense but she said she didn’t let it affect her. “I tried not to think about it despite it looking like the apocalypse even before we were asked to leave”, she told CNN in an email exchange.
Canada Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said the economic cost of the wildfire would likely eclipse that of the 2013 Alberta floods, which was in the range of C$6 billion. Around half of the country’s crude production from the sands had been taken offline as of Friday.
But officials concluded they were no longer safe there because of shifting winds that raised the risk of them becoming trapped, and needed to move south to other evacuee staging grounds and eventually to Edmonton, 400 kilometers away.
Chad Morrison with Alberta Wildfire said firefighters have held the line against the fire better than they expected in Fort McMurray.
Officials also completed the transport of 25,000 residents out of work camps north of the city.
With cooler temperatures in the next three or four days, he said firefighters should be able to put out hot spots.
“For the wildfire stuff, out in the forested area, that’s going to take us a long time to clean up”.
In this image released by the Alberta Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), members of the RCMP monitor the Fort McMurray Wildfire, on May 7, 2016 in Fort McMurray, Canada.
Diane Bauer, assistant superintendent of the Lakeland Catholic School District, said in a recent interview that schools in cities such as Bonnyville and Cold Lake have been instructed to open the door to anyone arriving from Fort McMurray.
“It was only for a few minutes but the sight of rain has never been so good”, it said. Morrison said the oil facilities are highly resistant to fire with their buffer zones.
The fire was so large that smoke from the fair is blanketing parts of the neighboring province of Saskatchewan where Environment Canada has issued special air quality statements for several areas. They’re also relaxing some of their policies when it comes to things like allowing pets and the number of people in the room.
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“So, they will be in a position to get back and running relatively quickly after the danger is past”, he added. Teachers will have to see if their homes are intact and if they wish to return. She said Fort McMurray, even in its current circumstances, is preferable to what she had left behind in Syria.
