Rain helps keep Fort McMurray wildfire from growing, but officials not getting complacent
Posted May 16, 2024 10:50 am.
Last Updated May 16, 2024 7:30 pm.
Rain, overcast skies and cooler temperatures helped keep the Fort McMurray wildfire from growing overnight, but officials say the hard work is far from over.
The out-of-control wildfire — the only such designated fire in Alberta — remains at nearly 20,000 hectares in size. It is just under six kilometres from the southwest outskirts of the community and less than five kilometres from the main highway south.
According to Environment Canada, Fort McMurray is forecasted to receive rain all through the holiday weekend — up until Monday.
“Last night when the rain started falling, we were still seeing open flame on this wildfire,” said Josee St-Onge, an Alberta Wildfire information officer. “It’s still very active and very hot. And the thing that is important to note with these very large wildfires is that they burn deep into the ground and they have very hot spots that can continue to smolder, even when there’s rain.
“So the rain will damper things for today — we’ll see less flame and less smoke — but the fire is still very hot and is still active.”
The wildfire has forced the evacuation of 6,600 residents from four neighbourhoods; evacuees are likely to remain out of their homes until at least next Tuesday. The rest of the city and other surrounding subdivisions remain under evacuation alert.
Evacuees have gone to Lac La Biche, Cold Lake and Edmonton. Fire Chief Jody Butz, the director of emergency management for the RM of Wood Buffalo, says it too early for them to return.
“Once we have the neighbourhoods, the residents from those neighbourhoods out of harm’s way, we don’t want to go back and forth on that,” Butz said. “I think we had seen remnants of that last year. There’s another reason for that, is the safety of emergency responders putting in those safeguards in those neighbourhoods. We need the room and space for that.”
Butz says there has been no structural damage in the four evacuated neighbourhoods: “When you return home, your neighbourhood will look exactly the same.”
He adds an additional 40 RCMP officers have been brought in to help — including by patrolling the empty neighbourhoods.
“We are in a very good place at the moment,” Butz said . “We’ve got time on our side and our level of preparedness is at an all time high.”
Rain a ‘blessing,’ says evacuee
Fort McMurray evacuee Joseph Dickson tells CityNews he wants to go home, but understands why authorities would like him to wait.
“It’s OK, one week… two weeks is better, but after a month people start missing home,” the Beacon Hill resident aid. “Especially with the good moisture, people expect to come back, and some parts of the city are running as well so we have hopes.”
Beacon Hill was one of the mandatory evacuated communities. Dickson returned Thursday to see if he could pick up some essentials from home.
“I’m trying to get back in to grab my laptop and other personal stuff.”
Dickson called the rain a “blessing.”
“The good Lord has answered our prayers and sent us a lot of moisture, so we are expecting a lot of that in the coming days, and I’m hoping it will be good news for everyone to come back as soon as possible,” he said.
Fort Mac resident Konstantinos Asimakopoelos, who moved there four months ago and was not in the evacuation zone, was equally thankful for the rain
“To know that the rain will stay for the next three or four days, to me it sounds like its a godsend, and hopefully it doesn’t move a different way and it can stay and help us out,” he said.
Fire guard from Highway 63 to Athabasca River
The province says 172 firefighters, 22 helicopters and 57 pieces of heavy equipment are currently assigned to the blaze near the oilsands city.
Fire crews are working to build a “very large” fire guard from Highway 63 to the Athabasca River.
“It’s four machines wide,” St-Onge said. “It’s a big fire guard. So that will definitely help slow down a wildfire if it were to come in that direction.”
“This fire guard is a lot bigger and a lot stronger than the ones that were built at the beginning of this operation when we just didn’t have as many resources or as much time. So every day that goes on, we have more time and more preparation going into building these lines.”
St-Onge adds there’s no “immediate risk” of the fire jumping the Athabasca River, as did the wildfire that devastated Fort McMurray in 2016.
“There are contingency plans in place in case that were to happen,” she said. “We are always looking at our strategies and reassessing them based on what fire behaviour we’re expecting to see.”
The Alberta Wildfire information officer adds the Fort McMurray wildfire could burn for the foreseeable future.
“I can’t really speculate on a precise date. Each fire is different,” St-Onge said. “But once the fire reaches this size, it does burn for a long time before we can put an ‘extinguished’ label on it. We’ve seen that last summer and it’s likely going to be true again this summer.
“Having the entire wildfire extinguished could take something closer to months, and in some cases, it’s taken years. So we don’t want to speculate, but this is long work, and this wildfire will be a reality for weeks and months.”
Heading into the long weekend, provincial officials are stressing that Albertans obey fire bans and restrictions, and use good judgment when camping.
–With files from The Canadian Press
