[GoghGoner]

Somebody posted in the wildfires thread but this is the largest evacuation in Canada's history and the industrial buildings look like they are on fire.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/03/world/fort-mcmurray-alberta-fire-canada-irpt/index.html

[Newfie]

http://apnews.excite.com/article/201605 ... 070f2.html

Another story, I have some relatives up there.

[vox_mundi]

A Canadian oil-sands town is on fire; 80,000 residents must evacuate

Breaking updates: http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/trending/li ... -1.3565398

... In an interview with the Globe and Mail, White described a scene that resembled a “zombie apocalypse.”

As she drove south, “flames jumped over the highway” and engulfed a gas station to her left. “It was torched,” White said. Everywhere she turned, there was fire:

People were driving on the shoulder. There were flames maybe 15 feet high right off the highway. There was a dump truck on fire — I had to swerve around it — and there was a pickup truck on fire as well. The entire trailer park on my right was in flames. Roofs were coming down.

As the frantic residents fled, it was uncertain whether they would have places to go. According to the CBC, food and lodging were offered at nearby oil-sands work camps, but even those — which generally accommodate thousands of employees — became overwhelmed.

Nearest large city - 260 miles south - through the flames.





Fort McMurray residents stuck in long lineups as wildfire approaches

Cape Breton native Verna Murphy was stuck in traffic as cars lined up to get out of the path of the fire.

She described people crying in cars and on the side of the road. Three water bombers flew over head as she spoke to CBC News.

"It's actually chaos right now," Murphy said.

"We're on a divided highway and people are going over on the wrong side of the highway and driving against traffic to try to get down. It's just total chaos and pandemonium."

Jenn Ward of Scotsburn, N.S., said lack of gas is a big concern for those trying to leave town. She and her boyfriend are sheltering in a commercial trailer north of Fort McMurray, near the Suncor site.

"There's extremely thick smoke. No one is going outside."

The couple originally was headed for Edmonton but the wildfire jumped the highway forcing them to go north.

They only have about a half-tank of gas.

"It's not enough to really get anywhere. But there's no place to get the gas, other places are running out of gas," said Ward who's been in living in Fort McMurray for the past 18 months.

By Tuesday night there was no gas left in Fort McMurray.

"There's no more fuel in Fort McMurray and it's being drained as we go south," said Schmitte.

"We've now seen 11 accidents. Human beings right now are more of a threat than the fire is," she said.

"I'm so upset with seeing people drive like this and putting the rest of us in danger because emergency services can't get to us if there is an accident."

Ward is also concerned about the lack of information and guidance coming from the municipality.

"It's been really terribly chaotic," Ward said.

"We need leadership here. No one is stepping up and saying what needs to be done. There's not a lot of information right now.

The weather conditions are a "perfect storm," in the area — dry and hot after a mild winter, with northerly winds blowing.

... Firefighters were trying to maintain crucial infrastructure in the city, including the only bridge across the Athabasca River and Highway 63, the only route to the city from the south.

Fire Chief Darby Allen said they have requested military assistance and expect the army and air force will start sending out troops within a couple of days.

... Shawn Brett was at home when his friends called him about the wildfire, urging him to leave. Brett said when he opened the door of his house there was smoke and flames all around the neighbourhood, so he jumped on his Harley motorcycle and made his way through a traffic jam out of Fort McMurray.

“I didn't have time for nothing. I literally drove through the flames. I had ashes hitting my face and the heat from the fire was that bad,” he said. “Everything was jammed. It was nothing but the biggest chaos I'd ever seen.”

Amidst the flames and smoke in her neighbourhood April Bolger frantically called 911 for an ambulance to help her 20-month-old daughter, Lilly, who has congenital heart failure. Bolger said she was told to fend for herself.

... North of Fort McMurray, work camps associated with oilsands projects were quickly re-purposed to house evacuees.

John Henderson of Edmonton, a scaffolder who was staying at a camp about an hour north of Fort McMurray, said he and the other workers were going to be flown out to make room for the evacuees, most of whom had arrived on buses and were staying in the gymnasium.

“Let's face it, if things go south — and by south I mean move more north — this isn't a place you want to be anyways.”

... Fort McMurray is the capital of Alberta's oilsands region and sits about 435 kilometres northeast of Edmonton.

It was five years ago this month that wildfires destroyed about one-third of the community of Slave Lake, Alta. More than 500 homes and buildings were damaged at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Notley said the Fort McMurray situation rivals the Slave Lake catastrophe.

“In terms of fire this is our biggest fire evacuation,” she said. “This is bigger than Slave Lake.”

[Paulo1]

No offense intended here, but it will be a big boost in construction work if there is a required major re-build. As most of you know, my son worked in the oil Sands for ten years. He still has friends there, several who own homes in the city. It is a terrible situation. If he sends me on anything interesting I'll post it.

I used to work in Yukon, and just did the math, it was 30 years ago. (Where did the time go?) Anyway, one year the whole Yukon seemed to be on fire. Very scary. The entire summer seemd to be 1/4 mile vis in heavy smoke. I spent several months flying by looking straight down to figure out there I was. Some days we were grounded in heavy smoke.

Anyway, I'll forward this to my son. Thanks for the post.

regards

[vox_mundi]

Oil tops $45 after slide; wildfire cuts oilsand production

The Canadian province of Alberta was evacuating the entire population of Fort McMurray where a wildfire was taking hold in the heart of the country’s oil sands region, prompting some companies to cut output.

“Oil prices could receive support from the wildfires in the Canadian oil province of Alberta,” said Carsten Fritsch, analyst at Commerzbank.

“It would not come as any surprise if speculative financial investors were to take profits against this news backdrop,” Fritsch added.

Canada’s Suncor Energy, whose oil sands operations are closest to the city, said its main plant north of Fort McMurray, was safe, but it was reducing crude production in the region to allow employees and families to get to safety.

[AdamB]

Somebody posted in the wildfires thread but this is the largest evacuation in Canada's history and the industrial buildings look like they are on fire.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/03/world/fort-mcmurray-alberta-fire-canada-irpt/index.html

Industry should be happy about what might happen to oil prices!!! Happy times might be here again!! At least for a little while.

[WildRose]

So many people have lost their homes, and today may be worse than yesterday as far as fighting the fire goes, depending on the wind direction, etc. Right now they're trying to protect the city's most important infrastructure, including the bridge that connects the two parts of the city.

[yellowcanoe]

There is hardly any forest fire activity in Ontario right now so they should be asking us for assistance, especially for water bombers. The fire situation in the last few years has been pretty good in Ontario and very bad in the western provinces so it has become the norm for a portion of our water bomber fleet to spend a good part of the summer in Western Canada. That's how the system is supposed to work -- provinces that are having a bad fire season can request assistance from provinces that have a low level of forest fire activity.

[vox_mundi]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/05/world/americas/fort-mcmurray-canada-fire.html?_r=0

Photos posted by residents on social media and video from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation showed walls of flame several stories high menacing Highway 63, a north-south route that is the only roadway out of the city. Some residents said that a mild panic set in after the fire jumped the highway, closing it to the south for several hours on Tuesday. In attempts to escape, motorists drove down the grass median of the divided highway or traveled north on its southbound lanes.

As the highway became gridlocked, it took motorists five hours or longer to travel about 12 miles to oil sands work camps north of Fort McMurray that were designated evacuation centers.

The only hospital in the city, Northern Lights Regional Health Centre, evacuated all 105 patients, the Alberta government said.

The regional government on Tuesday ordered the evacuation of all city residents, but getting out remained difficult. The route out of Fort McMurray was complicated by a highway closure caused by the fire, and gasoline shortages prevented some people from being able to drive away. Some 44,000 people had fled the city by late on Tuesday, local officials said.

... "Fuel is not readily available - do not attempt to travel south without sufficient fuel,"

"Fuel is not readily available - do not attempt to travel south without sufficient fuel," the regional government wrote in a bulletin posted on Twitter early on Wednesday.

The fire broke out southwest of the city on Sunday, then shifted with the wind to enter the city on Tuesday. A forecast of potential fire intensity showed much of the area at class 6, the highest possible level.

"All our efforts to control and contain the fire were challenged by this extreme fire behavior," forestry manager Bernie Schmitte said. "Efforts were also hampered by smoke conditions. Basically fire behavior was beyond all control efforts."

The main challenge ahead: fierce winds gusting in different directions.

The speed of the fire’s progress and its ever-shifting direction made it too dangerous to tackle from the ground, said Laura Stewart, a spokeswoman for the provincial government.


http://wildfire.alberta.ca/fire-danger- ... fault.aspx


http://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/maps/fw

By early on Wednesday morning, Shell had closed one oil sands mine and was in the process of closing another. Chief Financial Officer Simon Henry said the company's priority was safety and to support the community. Henry said upgraders, which process oil sands to produce crude, would operate for a few more days.

[vox_mundi]

Destructive Canadian wildfire fueled by global warming-related trends

The wildfire that continues to rage throughout the Fort McMurray, Alberta area, prompting at least 80,000 people to flee the flames in the largest fire-related evacuation in Alberta's history, is no fluke in this era of megafires across the American West and the mighty Boreal forests of Canada, Alaska and Russia.

It is yet another warning sign of a climate system run amok, due to a combination of human-caused global warming and natural climate variability, according to climate studies and experts.

... The fire erupted during a day of extraordinary warmth in Alberta and nearby provinces, with temperatures reaching 32 degrees Celsius, or about 90 degrees Fahrenheit, all the way to nearly to 60 degrees North latitude.

Such temperatures are virtually unheard of at this time of year, since snow cover typically prevents such mild temperatures from occurring until June at the earliest in the far northern latitudes.

However, due in part to an El Niño event in the tropical Pacific Ocean, the winter season was milder and drier than average, which has led to an anemic snow cover throughout northwest Canada.

This has allowed the soil and vegetation to dry out, making it more susceptible to wildfires.


32 °C = 90 °F

In addition, long-term trends associated with human-caused global warming include earlier spring snow melt and later starts to the winter season, which is lengthening wildfire seasons from Alaska to Alberta, and south to New Mexico.

According to Mike Flannigan, a wildfire specialist at the University of Alberta, the area burned by wildfires in Alberta has more than doubled since 1970, a trend he said is partly tied to global warming.

A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2013 found that boreal forests, which form a ring around the world just below the Arctic Circle, have been burning at rates that are unprecedented in 10,000 years. That study tied such burn rates to warming temperatures and increased evaporation.

Global warming is also leading to more extreme fire weather days such as what occurred on Tuesday and Wednesday, with dry soils, record temperatures and strong winds.

A study Flannigan published in the journal Climatic Change earlier this year, for example, found that as average temperatures increase in parts of Canada, the result will be "a higher frequency of extreme fire weather days" due mainly to the drying influence of warmer temperatures.

“The weather is becoming more conducive to fire like we’re seeing this spring," Flannigan told Mashable in an interview. “The increase in fire activity in Canada is due to human-caused climate change,” he said.

According to Environment Canada, which is the official weather agency for the country, 26 locations in Alberta set or tied high temperature records on Tuesday, and more record heat and high winds are likely to occur on Wednesday too.

The warmth was especially pronounced in Fort McMurray, where the high temperature hit a record 32.6 degrees Celsius, or 91 degrees Fahrenheit, besting the old record of 27.8 degrees Celsius by about 5 degrees Celsius. Records there date back to 1944.

Such extreme heat at this time of year is about 40 degrees Fahrenheit, or 23 degrees Celsius, above average for this location.

The average high temperature on May 3 in Fort McMurray is about 14 degrees Celsius, or 58 degrees Fahrenheit, according to Environment Canada.

In Fort Chipewyan, the record high of 25.9 degrees Celsius, or 79 degrees Fahrenheit, beat the old record of 20.6 degrees Celsius, or 69 degrees Fahrenheit, by nearly 6 degrees Celsius, which is an unusually large margin. Records there date back to 1884, and the old daily high temperature record was set in 1898.

In addition, the weather pattern across North America features an unusually wavy jet stream that resembles the Greek letter Omega. Such "Omega blocks," as they are known to meteorologists, often lead to prolonged periods of extreme weather, and this time is no exception.

The pattern is allowing mild air to spill far into Northwest Canada, while cool and wet conditions are trapped along the East Coast of the U.S

[WildRose]

vox_mundi, thanks for your excellent information re: coverage of the fire in Fort McMurray and how our warming climate plays into this.

As a resident of Alberta, I've been experiencing the increasing temps, warmer and drier winters, and increasing, year-round winds for many years now. We've had a couple of years of good moisture since 2000, but overall our conditions have been much warmer and drier. Unfortunately, the devastation in Fort McMurray could happen anywhere in the province now, it is so dry. As I look around Edmonton and surrounding area, I see trees that are hurting from lack of moisture; they came out in leaf very early this spring but the leaves are stunted in growth, and many trees have died or look unhealthy. All we can do is wait for rain.

Maybe this situation will raise awareness of the direct effects of climate change here in Alberta, we'll see I guess.

[jedrider]

Just a question:

Is this the boreal forest that is burning that contains the famous Alberta tar sands?

If so, is there some irony to this?

The entire West is drying out [except for where pstar lives evidently, the only place in California listed as normal in the drought map], so I do have sympathy for these folks. I lived in the middle of a forest once and loved it. I wouldn't want to live in a forest now.

[vox_mundi]

‘Like driving through the apocalypse’: Residents capture unbelievable videos of Fort McMurray fire

Evacuation of 80,000 impeded as wildfire rages in Canadian city

Disabled/out of gas cars litter the evacuation route

Fuel shortages and heavy traffic snarled the evacuation of all 80,000 residents from the western Canadian city of Fort McMurray on Wednesday as a wildfire raged out of control, destroying much of one neighborhood and badly damaging others.

... “It's pretty chaotic. The gas stations were running out of gas. A lot of the ones closed in the city, they weren’t open so there was a lot of cars there that were just abandoned,”

Officials said their priority was protecting people and preserving key infrastructure, including the city's only bridge over the Athabasca River and Highway 63, the only route in and out of town.

A highway closure on Tuesday forced most evacuees to drive north, away from major cities. By Wednesday morning, the highway had reopened, but fuel had run out, stranding evacuees seeking to drive out of Fort McMurray. Alberta's transportation department said it was escorting a fuel tanker north to help stranded drivers.

Evacuees at the work camps and gas stations, many of whom left without the chance to take many belongings with them as the fled, appeared lost and sad.

"The parents looked like they were trying to be happy for the kids," Desjarlais said. "I was crying when I was having breakfast because I was seeing the little kids and I just couldn't say anything."

Gas stations some 50 km (31 miles) south of Fort McMurray were depleted Tuesday night, and nearly 3,000 evacuees took refuge in the Anzac Recreation Center in Wood Buffalo. Outside, motorists formed long lines as they waited for fuel.

"It's crazy here right now. The biggest issues (are) food and water for Fort Mac refugees at camps, and fuel, gas and diesel. The site is running out of fuel so we aren't working today," he said, asking not to be named because he is not authorized to speak to the media.

'Organized confusion' on the only road out of Fort McMurray

FORT MCMURRAY, Alta. — The only highway leading south from fire-ravaged Fort McMurray was "organized confusion" Wednesday morning, with cars strung along ditches, police running jerry cans of gasoline and long bottlenecks at the few communities along the road.

"There's a lot of vehicles on the side of the road," said RCMP Sgt. John Spaans of Boyle, a small town about two-thirds of the way from the oilsands capital to Edmonton.

"It's tough to say if these people have broken down and pulled over, run out of gas, or simply parked and camped, but there are a lot of vehicles that are in the ditches, medians, along the shoulders. Highway 63 is packed with that."

Alberta Transportation said on Twitter it was escorting a fuel tanker up Highway 63 to assist stranded motorists.

As cars anxiously waited out the traffic, behind them came the distinctive “pop” of cars, propane tanks, ammunition and speedboats exploding in the conflagration. Minute by minute; familiar landmarks turned to ashes. A Super 8 hotel burned down only steps from fleeing vehicles on Highway 63. A Flying J gas station reportedly exploded. Explosion Video

Cell towers overloaded and by 9 p.m. Tuesday, the entire Fort McMurray area was drained of fuel. At a gas station at Fort McMurray First Nation, gasoline was rationed out at 40 litres per car. Just enough, it was hoped, to get drivers the three hours south to Lac La Biche.

Mounties cruised the highway with jerry cans, but given the scale of the fuel shortage, whole families packed into pickup trucks were told to hang tight until morning.

With Fort McMurray radio stations either evacuated or claimed by the fire, CBC Edmonton kept up an all-night, province-wide broadcast on the unfolding disaster.

As the blaze breached neighborhood after neighborhood, fire suppression efforts were dialed back to the most basic objectives: “Preservation of life” and “protection of critical infrastructure. “

Military air assets preparing to head to Fort McMurray: source

As the wildfire evacuation order in Fort McMurray enters its second day, iPolitics has learned the main form of support offered by the military will likely be air support.

Sources tell iPolitics the assets being arranged at this point are air assets that will be used to help move those people out of the oilsands camps and to safer locations.

To the south of Fort McMurray is the army base at Edmonton Garrison. To the east is the air base at CFB Cold Lake. But as of Tuesday night, officials maintained that a military deployment is still two days away.

[dohboi]

Thanks for opening this thread, GG, and for all the great content and links from everyone, but esp from vox.

rs is covering this now, too: https://robertscribbler.com/2016/05/03/ ... -evacuate/

“Please Get Us Out” — Historic Alberta Wildfire Threatens to Engulf Entire City of Fort McMurray, 80,000 Forced to Evacuate

[vox_mundi]

You're welcome WildRose

Just a question:

Is this the boreal forest that is burning that contains the famous Alberta tar sands?

If so, is there some irony to this?

The entire West is drying out [except for where pstar lives evidently, the only place in California listed as normal in the drought map], so I do have sympathy for these folks. I lived in the middle of a forest once and loved it. I wouldn't want to live in a forest now.

The answer to your question is Yes. Ironic isn't it.

After the fire is put out and the TV cameras have left I've always wondered how many people return to the scorched earth of their burnt homes and actually rebuild.

So you rebuild your house and every morning you look out the window to a moonscape that reminds you of what you have lost. Bad for the psyche... and for the kids.

Who has a second lifetime to wait for another forest to regrow.

[vox_mundi]

Canada wildfire: 1,600 Fort McMurray buildings damaged

A wildfire has brought "significant destruction" to the Canadian city of Fort McMurray, with 1,600 structures affected as of Wed. morning, the premier of the province of Alberta says.

Rachel Notley said the fire was still on the move, with more communities, including the airport area, in danger.

Fire officials said the size of the blaze was now 7,500 hectares (29 sq miles) and it was being tackled by 100 firefighters, with efforts focused on downtown, the Gregoire area and the airport.

'Catastrophic' Fort McMurray wildfire surpasses 10,000 hectares (38.6 sq. mi.)

The Beacon Hill suburb was said to have lost 80% of its homes. A CTV reporter there said there was almost nothing left. "It's just blocks and blocks of soot, basically," she said.

"Neighbourhoods that escaped the flames Tuesday may still be in grave danger. "This fire will look for them," he said, "and it will find them, and it will try to take them."

Images from the neighborhood of Beacon Hill in the city's southeast showed rows of charred house foundations, their upper stories burned to the ground, and blankets of white ash within. Officials said 80 percent of houses in the neighborhood, nearly 600 in total, were destroyed.

The regional government said two other neighborhoods, Abasand and Waterways, had sustained "serious loss." Abasand is home to nearly 4,900 people, and Waterways more than 600, according to a 2015 municipal census.



Pinning down the exact number of people who fled the fire is no easy task. On Tuesday night, officials estimated that a total of 53,000 people had been forced to leave the city. But census data lists the city's population at near 80,000, though some of those people may only live there part-time.

[vox_mundi]

Winds picking up ...

https://www.wunderground.com/personal-w ... ALBERTA478
https://www.wunderground.com/personal-w ... IABFORTM17

https://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/fi ... t+mcmurray

And the fires getting closer to the airport


This is a livecam image - Reload page to update image

http://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/a ... ires/67307
http://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/a ... hen/67130/

Emergency operations centre in #FortMcMurray ordered evacuated as wildfire continues to grow. @ 2:50 PM 5/4/16

Officials say there is a fear that a large portion of #FortMcMurray could be lost in worst case scenario. #CBC #ymmfire #ymm #yeg

SB Hwy63 from Wandering River to Grassland significant traffic congestion through the area. (12:52pm) #ABRoads #ymm #ymmfire

"It was chaos... Grown men were starting to tear up... People were panicking... It was raining ashes," says #ymmfire evacuee Jeff Besso

http://www.cbc.ca/news2/interactives/br ... -wildfire/

Time-Lapse Video

Canada Sends Military Aircraft to Stop the Spread of Massive Alberta Wildfires

The Canadian Air Force has dispatched several CH-146 helicopters to fire-ravaged northern Alberta, the Canadian military has confirmed to VICE News, while a CC-130 Hercules strategic lift plane is already in the air to a nearby air base to help with the logistics of the response to the fires.

The military response will be formally announced at a teleconference on Wednesday afternoon, and the military says more assets may be dispatched as needed.

[GHung]

Here's the airport webcam full size without the Weather Underground delays: https://www.lookr.com/lookout/134919332 ... n-play-day Hit play for time lapse.

Local Radio stations live: http://www.mymcmurray.com/live-coverage ... wildfires/

[onlooker]

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/wil ... smsnnews11
Here is another link

[sidzepp]

Syrian refugees are citizens and permanent residents of Syria who have fled the country since the onset of the Syrian Civil War in 2011.

"As of February 2016, the United Nations (UN) has identified 13.5 million Syrians requiring humanitarian assistance, of which 6.6 million are internally displaced within Syria, and over 4.8 million are refugees outside of Syria.[2] Turkey is the largest host country with over 2.7 million Syrian refugees.[3][27][28] Assistance to internally displaced persons (IDPs) within Syria, and Syrian refugees in neighbouring countries, is coordinated largely through the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)."
While my sympathies are with those residents of Alberta in the fire zone, it is certainly amazing that we give only lip service to the refugees in Syria.