Fort Mac fire could burn for months; officials turn off city gas supply, form plan to return residents
by John Cotter, The Canadian Press, with files from Rachel La Corte And Rob Gillies, The Associated Press
There still is no timeline for any of the 80,000 evacuated residents to be allowed back into their homes, but the Alberta government says it has begun preliminary planning
FORT MCMURRAY, Alta.—Fire officials are bracing themselves for a long fight against the blaze that devastated Fort McMurray and has eaten up more than 2,000 square kilometres of northern Alberta forest.
“Unless we have a significant rain event of 100 millimetres of rain, we expect to be out fighting the fire in the forested area for months to come,” Chad Morrison with Alberta Wildfires told a media briefing Saturday afternoon.
“That’s not uncommon with such large fires.”
As for the city of Fort McMurray, he said he expected they would get a good handle on the situation “over the next coming month or two.”
There still is no timeline for any of the 80,000 evacuated residents to be allowed back into their homes, but the Alberta government has begun preliminary planning, though it stresses fighting the fire is still the first priority.
Fire officials said the wind-whipped inferno doubled in size May 7, and depending on the weather, could reach the Saskatchewan border.
The good news was that the fire was burning away from communities. Premier Rachel Notley said firefighters continued working to protect the downtown and homes in Fort McMurray and held the line for a second straight day.
She added the gas supply has been turned off in the city and the power grid has been damaged. Water in the city isn’t drinkable and hazardous material will have to be cleaned up to make the community safe.
“The return won’t be in coming days,” said the premier. “Once the immediate fire damage is completed there will be an enormous amount of work to do to make the city safe and habitable.”
Evacuation hits oilsands operations
Non-essential personnel at both Syncrude and Suncor oil facilities in the area have been evacuated as a precaution.
“We do expect the fire to bump again the edge of the south end of the Suncor facility today,” said Morrison, but he added the companies’ highly trained industrial fire department would remain to protect the facilities.
“These sites are very resilient to wildfires, largely because they’re free and clear of vegetation and trees.”
Noralta Lodge, an oilsands housing facility where RCMP and firefighters have been staying, was placed on a two-hour evacuation notice.
“They have a solid evacuation plan in place,” said Morrison. “If they’re under any kind of a threat there will be a safe, controlled evacuation.”
Industry, government, First nations working together
The Provincial Operations Centre said in an email that most of the 25,000 people who were evacuated to oilsands work camps north of Fort McMurray had been relocated via airlifts and police escorted convoys to locations south of the city.
The centre said those who remain in the camps are primarily oil industry workers involved in the fire fight.
The centre added that industry and government were working Saturday evening with the Fort Mackay First Nation to fly out 60 vulnerable elders.
Federal Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said firefighters from other provinces were being brought in to relieve those who have been battling what he calls “this beast of a fire” for a week.
Eighty firefighters from Ontario have already arrived. Goodale told a news conference in Regina that another 44 are on their way from Quebec and 22 from New Brunswick. Equipment, such as pumps, hoses and tankers, are also coming from other provinces.
“What we’re trying to do, with the co-operation of other provinces and territories, is bring in rotations of other firefighters that can give them a break.”
Key infrastructure spared
David Yurdiga, the member of Parliament for the area, toured Fort McMurray Sunday and said he was now more optimistic.
“We’ll be back on our feet a lot quicker than I thought we would be,” he told reporters at the roadblock just south of the city. “All of the key infrastructure is in place. Our hospital is standing. Our schools are standing. Our treatment plant is functioning.”
“I toured probably every neighbourhood in Fort McMurray and 80 per cent of the homes are standing,” he said. “Some areas you don’t even know there was a fire.”
With cooler temperatures forecast for the next three or four days, Alberta fire official Chad Morrison said firefighters should be able to put out hot spots. And it has allowed them to further protect Fort McMurray. He said he was very buoyed and happy that they are making great progress.
“It definitely is a positive point for us, for sure,” said Morrison, who answered yes when asked if the fight to contain the flames had a reached a turning point.
Oil output cut by 25 per cent
The fire and mass evacuation has forced a quarter or more of Canada’s oil output offline and was expected to impact an economy already hurt by the fall in oil prices. The Alberta oil sands have the third-largest reserves of oil in the world behind Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. Its workers largely live in Fort McMurray, a former frontier outpost-turned-city whose residents largely come from elsewhere in Canada.
Morrison said the fire has not reached the Suncor or Syncrude oil sands facilities north of Fort McMurray and that the mines north are not under threat. Notley said there will be a meeting with the energy industry on Tuesday to discuss the state of the facilities and the impact on operations.
Suncor said late Sunday it is beginning to implement its plan for a return to operations.
