Largest evacuation in Canada's history! With practically zero notice the entire population of Fort Mcmurray Alberta was on evacuation. One road to get out south and one road to no where north, people who fled north ended up trapped so to say, helicopter evac was needed for thousands. Evacuation sites are being evacuated, it's hell on earth up there rite now plain and simple. Extra dry spring with high temp, strong winds, a man set wild fire literally exploded. News said today the fire will double in size. Fire has become so large it is creating it's own weather causing lightning storms. just google Fort Mcmurray fire, the news feeds/videos are almost unbelievable...... mass traffic stuck in fire, entire neighbor hoods burnt to ashes, empty highway with ditches full of abandoned cars that ran out of gas while escaping. My heart goes out to all of the displaced people...... majority only had time to jump in the car with the cloths on there back, YES is that bad! \
I looked at the town on MapQuest and G. Earth. Looks pretty isolated - no other towns nearby. Also seems to have a large Oil field / refinery (?) just north of town (Syncrude...?) - so maybe it's mostly a 'company town'? Surprised to hear 90k people evacuated. Town doesn't look THAT large.......
A lot of Maritimers worked in Fort Mac. It has been a steady stream of folks coming back home to live with family members. Hubby, a Commissionaire at the airport, has spoken to more then a few folks coming back from out west. Very sad and scary stories of their escape. Thanks for posting Tedy, it has been a terrible week for every one concerned. There is a long way to go. Escaping the fire is the first of may hurdles for these folks. My prayers are with them.
A friend of mine lives in Alberta and she and her husband have been doing what they can to let ranchers and small farms board and feed animals on their property. This fire exploded so fiercely because this Winter was so much drier than normal in comparison to two years ago when they had rampant flooding.
expecting it to be 2500-3000 square KILOMETERS by end of today (Sunday) and to cross the Saskatchewan border... they figure it will burn for months. Krash: a lot of oil & gas activity up there, not just one operation. If gas/oil prices hadn't tanked recently and production was at levels 5 years ago, there would have been at least double the amount of people in the area. If you have a chance to watch some of the dash cam footage of those evacuating, it is unbelievable how close the fire is.
It is actually worse that the recent wildfires my state's had over the past two seasons simply because the fires were remote. Imagine if Tacoma was hit with this fire, or Spokane. I saw a post up from Syncrude that, in effect, all current employees were getting their paychecks on time, and furthermore, Syncrude was extending to EVERY employee an immediate CDN$2500 advance to ensure they all had money to take care of immediate expenses as everyone ran, and anyone who opted out could just write a check to Syncrude for the amount. THAT is an impressive act for any corporation to deliberately bear.
I never found out anything new about this. Like how are ask the people doing. I mean that's not only scary and terrible as hell but god I hope they got some good news afterwards. I guess I would just like to hear a follow up on the state of things up there. US news doesn't usually do follow up coverage after the initial fact... that and I get up at 1am for work.
I thought this was really cool...African fire fighters arriving at the Edmonton Airport. q=youtube+fort+mcmurray+firefighters+africa&&view=detail&mid=3E1229212F14B8E3F6913E1229212F14B8E3F691&FORM=VRDGAR
I thought it was DAM cool also, saw it on the news last(?) night. ..... have to say though, I wish our glorious leader excepted the offer from Russia via help of there water bombers at the mid way in the start of this.................
