Posts
The latest from the Guardian
Canadian officials hope to put 'death grip' on raging Fort McMurray fire
- Winds and favourable weather encourage those fighting massive blaze
- Fort McMurray evacuated but safe for workers as fire moves east
8
May, 2016
Cooler
weather and light rains left Canadian officials hopeful that they
could put a “death grip” on the blazing wildfire that has raged
through northern Alberta, engulfing neighbourhoods and forcing the
evacuation of an entire city.
“With
a bit of help from Mother Nature, and a lot of help from some very
dedicated first responders and firefighters, the Fort McMurray fire
grew much more slowly than we had feared yesterday,” Rachel Notley,
the Alberta premier, said on Sunday.
The
fire had grown to around 161,000 hectares (398,000 acres), a
significantly smaller size than the up to 300,000 hectares (741,000
acres) predicted one day earlier.
Winds
of up to 38mph continue to push the fire east, away from the Fort
McMurray community. By Sunday, the fire was within about 22 miles
(35km) of the neighbouring province of Saskatchewan.
The
estimated 25,000 people who were sent north of Fort McMurray during
Tuesday’s frantic evacuation have now all been moved south, to
cities far from the path of the fire and where support services can
be better accessed, Notley said.
Concerns
over heavy smoke had seen some 300 people evacuated from Fort McKay,
a First Nations community north of Fort McMurray, and brought to
Edmonton. Around 1,500 employees of the Syncrude oil sands were also
evacuated on Saturday and the facility was shut down. Several other
oil sands facilities evacuated some personnel.
Heavy
smoke north of Fort McMurray forced firefighters and first responders
out of the lodge where they had been staying and into the city of
Fort McMurray, said Notley.
“It
is good news that the city is now safe for first responders to be
based out of,” she said.
Hot
spots and flare-ups continue to pose a threat. But initial work to
recover the city has now begun, with hundreds of workers in Fort
McMurray to tackle restoring the power grid and assessing the gas
infrastructure.
On
Sunday, Notley also addressed “another important group of souls”,
referring to reports of pets left behind during the evacuation.
“As
soon as it was safe to do so, teams began going to locations where
pets had been left behind to give them food and water,” she said.
“They’ve also been keeping an eye out for animals in the
streets.”
The
premier expected to visit the city on Monday. “It is really too
early to speculate on the extent and the nature of the damage,” she
said.
While
there were known no direct casualties from the wildfire, a
15-year-old daughter of a local firefighter and her 19-year-old male
relative were killed in a crash during the city’s evacuation.
“Our
hearts go out to their families,” said Notley, who remarked that
Sunday was Mother’s Day in Canada. “I am hoping in all of this
crisis to spend a few minutes today with my own children. That not
all of us can do that is definitely an awful tragedy.”
As
she spoke, she fought to hold back tears.
Temperatures
in the region dropped to around 18C (64F) on Sunday and brought a
slight sprinkling of rain, eliciting cheers from staff in the
municipality’s emergency centre. Forecasts showed a 30% chance of
showers on Sunday evening and overnight.
Such
conditions were great news, said Chad Morrison, Alberta’s manager
of wildfire prevention.
“This
is great firefighting weather,” he said. “We can really get in
here and get a handle on this fire, and really get a death grip on
it.”
Despite
Saturday’s extreme conditions, firefighters were able to hold areas
in Fort McMurray and the nearby community of Anzac, and keep the fire
away from the Suncor Energy oil sands facility.
“We
expect the fire to either hold or move away from these sites in the
coming days,” said Morrison.
More
than 500 firefighters, backed by 200 helicopters and 44 pieces of
heavy equipment, continued to battle the blaze, with 27 air tankers
available to assist.
The
wildfire will likely still take months to put out, said Morrison,
particularly if the region sees one or two more weeks of hot weather.
“This
fire has had such extreme wildfire behaviour,” he said, including
creating its own meteorological conditions, igniting four lightning
fires and jumping across a mile-wide river at one point. Officials
hope the fire will remain contained to the province’s forested
areas, far from communities.
Morrison
expected it would be at least one more week before the cause of the
fire could be determined
The
wildfire forced as much as half of Canada’s oil sands production
capacity offline, according to estimates, and is expected to have a
dramatic impact on a country already hobbling from the drop in the
price of oil.
Notley
said she would meet key players in the province’s energy sector on
Tuesday. The Alberta oil sands rank among the world’s largest
reserves of oil.
With
tens of thousands of evacuees scattered across the province – many
of them wondering if they have a home to return to – the fire has
triggered an outpouring of generosity among Canadians. More than
C$44m ($34m, £23.6m) has been donated to the Canadian Red Cross –
all of which will be matched by the federal government.
Thousands
of volunteers across the country have sought to ease the lives of
evacuees – sorting warehouses stacked with donations of supplies,
for instance, while former brides and bridal shops offered to provide
a dress for a soon-to-be-wed evacuee who wasn’t able to pick up her
own dress from the seamstress before being evacuated.
In
Calgary, a group of Syrian refugees have been collecting donations to
send to those who fled the fire.
“[Canadians]
have given us everything,” the group’s Facebook page read, in
Arabic. “Now it’s time to return the favour.”
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.