Alberta wildfires update - 05/24/2016

Smoke clears over Fort McMurray wildfire and it's bigger than previously thought

Edmonton Journal,

22 May, 2016

Rain and cooler temperatures have allowed firefighters to better assess the size of the Fort McMurray wildfire, and it’s bigger than previous estimates suggested.

The latest estimates peg the wildfire at 522,894 hectares on the Alberta side, and 2,496 hectares across the border into Saskatchewan, Laura Stewart, an Alberta wildfire information officer, confirmed Sunday afternoon.

While the fire was reported to be 504,443 hectares yesterday, Stewart said it hasn’t grown, rather the weather helped to clear smoke in the area allowing firefighters to better assess the size.

“Firefighters are making really great progress, taking advantage, of course, of these cooler temperatures,” she said, noting more rain is expected in the Fort McMurray area.

Fire conditions in northeastern Alberta remain extreme and the wildfire in Fort McMurray remains out of control, even with the cooler weather.

But that cooler, wet weather has allowed firefighters to reclassify the fire near Janvier, which was also reported as out of control on Saturday.

A lot more rain fell in the Janvier area and the 146-hectare fire is now being held, Stewart said, adding that it isn’t expected to grow any further.

Sixteen other fires are also burning in the province.

There are 1,880 firefighters, 104 helicopters, 29 air tankers and 295 pieces of heavy equipment being used to fight wildfires across the province.

Random camping on public lands in the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo has been banned to prevent the need for firefighters to respond to other emergency situations.

On Saturday mandatory evacuation orders were lifted for seven oilsands sites including, Millenium, Borealis, Hudson, Noralta, and Ruth Lake lodge, as well as Suncor Base Plant and Syncrude Mildred Lake Plant.

Oilsands camps south of Anzac, including Nexen Long Lake, HML Lodge, Gregoire River, Nexen Kinosis, PTI Kinosis, PTI Anzac, Surmont and Cheecham Lodge, will begin a phased re-entry so assessment work can begin. Guest occupancy is not permitted until safety inspections are completed, the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo said in a news release Sunday. 

Fort McMurray residents are expected to be able to start returning home on June 1 on a voluntary, phased basis.

The municipality has released a timeline and map outlining the phased re-entry plan.

Atco employees are in the city working to restore critical utility infrastructure. As of Sunday afternoon gas service had been restored to 90 per cent of undamaged areas in Fort McMurray and more than 90 per cent of the city had electricity.

A boil-water advisory remains in effect for the Fort McMurray area and any work camps that draw water from the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo water treatment plant.

An air quality advisory has also been issued for the Fort McMurray area due to the wildfires.

While debit-card locations are now closed, financial assistance is still available through Alberta Works offices. Evacuees, who do not have insurance, or sufficient insurance, can also apply for financial assistance for temporary housing at Alberta Works office.

Alberta rallies international help for Fort McMurray wildfires

More than 1,000 firefighters from around the world on their way to Alberta

CBC,

24 May, 2016

Alberta's fire boss hopes fresh feet at the perimeter of Fort McMurray's massive fire will save some of the province's most valuable assets.

More than 1,000 firefighters from across Canada, the U.S., South Africa and other countries will soon join the roughly 1,200-member fire crew already in Fort McMurray.

Provincial wildfire manager Chad Morrison said his team made the decision to order them up last week — around the time the fires swept to the edges of oilsands sites, forcing a mandatory evacuation of 19 facilities north of Fort McMurray.

Those evacuation orders have since been lifted, but caution continues as flames keep raging and growing. 

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"This fire is not under control by any means," Morrison said in a news conference Tuesday, when asked if the oilsands are in the clear.

He said there is no immediate threat, but added it's early yet, both in the life of this fire and the fire season in general.

And with no significant rain in two to three months — combined with warm forecast this week — it's going to stay tough.

"There always is that potential," that flames could cross the firebreaks around the Suncor and Syncrude facilities, that firefighters patrol, Morrison said. 

"That's why we're investing thousands of resources," he said. "We continue to secure the sites around there. We expect to hold it as best we can over the next coming days."

'Qualified, certified and highly trained'

Morrison called the new crews "qualified, certified, and highly trained" and said they are coming from as far away as Alaska and South Africa.

The North American reinforcements will arrive this week, while some 280 South African firefighters will get here next week.

Their "critical priority" will be securing the oilsand sites in the north, he said.

It's estimated roughly one million barrels per day have been lost due to the fire, which amounts to about half the typical daily output.

An RCMP officer adjusts his face mask at the northern road block outside Fort McMurray. Air quality, which has fluctuated as high as a 51 on the 1-10 risk scale, was at six Tuesday morning. (Marion Warnica/CBC)

Not all of that loss was attributed to threat from fires, but rather loss of workforce. Many oilsands employees are residents of Fort McMurray were evacuated from town.

Lately, dozens of oil workers have reported being evacuated from housing two or three times through a combination of precautionary and mandatory evacuation orders in the north, and the original exodus from the town itself.

Suncor and Syncrude, the two oilsands plants shuttered under mandatory evacuation orders last week, are now working with the province on a phased re-entry plan for some of those employees. 

Provincial officials say they're overseeing plans from affected companies, testing air quality and making sure labour regulations are met before staff are allowed to come back.

Re-entry rehearsal

Inside the town, the focus swivels to preparing for the return of evacuees.

It's a process that Scott Long with the Alberta Emergency Management Agency calls "an awful lot of work." And it continues day and night.

This week, they'll run a rehearsal to look more closely at their planning.

"If there's any gaps that we have not thought of, we will quickly address those," Long said.

This map from the provincial government shows the large perimeter of the fire on May 24. (Government of Alberta)

A detailed booklet telling evacuees what to expect, if they decide to return to Fort McMurray during the voluntary re-entry starting June 1, is now available online.

The province has also made significant progress on basic services.

Restoration of the hospital restarted on Sunday, electricity service has been restored to more 90 per cent of the community, and natural gas have been restored to 99 per cent of homes, outside the worst-hit neighbourhoods of Abasand, Waterways, and Beacon Hill.

Fort McMurray's commercial airport also announced Tuesday it plans to re-open June 10. And the RCMP detachment has now restarted its local office, with the majority of personnel returned.

Weekend rain skips northern flames 

The wildfires, which continue to burn out of control, grew over the weekend and have now consumed 522,892 hectares.

Rain and snow that hammered most of the province over the weekend largely skipped the wildfire area.

The Fort McMurray region saw at most 5 mm of rain, compared to the more than 100 mm seen in some parts of Edmonton.

But despite the many challenges, officials found some positive news to share.

Three weeks of warm, dry-as-dust conditions since the fire roared through town, mean even small showers and minor temperature dips seem like big victories.

Morrison said the break allowed crews to finalize 178 km of fire guard around the fire's perimeter.

That fire guard will make it easier for those new support crews to fight the fire on the ground.

Morrison said Tuesday will be another "challenging" day, though he remained, as ever, optimistic.

"We continue to make great progress."

This map from the provincial government tracks rain levels in Alberta over recent days. (Government of Alberta)

Canada loses quarter of crude output as result of wildfires

Conditions today indicate cool, windless conditions but no rain

Canada and Siberia on fire

The Alberta fires - update - 05/08/2016

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

the Guardian,

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.”

Family watches Fort McMurray Home Burn from Doorbell security

Obama's rejection of Keystone XL pipeline

This article points out the reality behind Obama’s rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline. America has built 10 Keystone pipelines and the Alberta tarsands continue.

This video expresses the usual liberal reponce:

America has built the equivalent of 10 Keystone pipelines since 2010 — and nobody said anything

America has built the equivalent of 10 Keystone pipelines since 2010 — and nobody said anything

Finance Post,

3 November, 2015

Crude oil pipeline mileage rose 9.1 per cent last year alone to reach 66,649 miles, according to data from the Washington, D.C.-based Association of Oil Pipe Lines (AOPL) set to be released soon.

Between 2009 and 2013, more than 8,000 miles of oil transmission pipelines have been built in the past five years in the U.S., AOPL spokesperson John Stoody said, compared to the 875 miles TransCanada wants to lay in the states of Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska for its 830,000-bpd project. By last year, the U.S. had built 12,000 miles of pipe since 2010.

“That’s the point we make,” Stoody said. “While people have been debating Keystone in the U.S. we have actually built the equivalent of 10 Keystones. And no one’s complained or said anything.”

On Monday, TransCanada asked the U.S. State Department to suspend review of its controversial Alberta-to-Nebraska pipeline in the latest episode of a six-year drama that has seen as many as five environmental reviews, numerous legal challenges and a rejection in 2012 by President Barack Obama.

Despite TransCanada’s request for a pause, the U.S. President still rejected the project. He announced on Friday that he would not approve the Keystone application, saying the project did not serve the nation’s interests.

The 487-mile southern leg of the project, dubbed the Gulf Coast project, between Cushing, Okla. and Texas refineries came on stream in 2014.

While the northern leg of Keystone XL remains under review, the Lower 48s have seen new oil pipes crisscrossing the country.

“If you look at 2010 versus now we have seen historic realignment that has transformed the infrastructure situation,” said Afolabi Ogunnaike, analyst at Wood Mackenzie. “There has been tremendous investment in pipelines and more investments are coming on.”

The U.S. midstream infrastructure is responding to a near-doubling of U.S. production over the past six years. The U.S. saw an 11.6 per cent increase in crude oil transport via pipelines in 2014, according to AOPL data.

But as U.S. oil production eases in response to lower crude prices, the rapid build-up could see pipeline capacity exceed production in the Bakken in North Dakota and even the Permian basin straddling Texas and New Mexico, Ogunnaike estimates.

“The low oil price environment is allowing the crude oil logistics to catch up to supply,” he said.

Armed with shipping commitments despite low crude prices, key pipeline operators are proceeding with many projects to alleviate the bottlenecks, which could add as much as 8.7 million barrels per day by 2018, Reuters data shows.

Last week, Houston-based pipeline company Enterprise Product Partners said it would have US$7.8 billion of major capital projects ready by the end of 2017. Tulsa, Okla.-based shipper Magellan Midstream Partners raised its capital expenditure by US$200 million to US$1.6 billion in its earnings announcement Tuesday. TransCanada has reported higher volumes on the Keystone Pipeline System in its third-quarter earnings, while Enbridge Inc. is also looking to expand its presence in the Gulf Coast.

Much of the opposition in the U.S. has focused on crude rail terminals, especially in California and Oregon, which has led to delays on some rail projects. In many states, pipeline is viewed more favourably than the sight of crude-bearing rail cars barreling down town centres.

“There is some local opposition, but we don’t have local or inter-state projects that are attracting the same level of scrutiny as Keystone XL seems to have. Keystone XL is an international issue,” Ogunnaike says.

But for many the fight against Keystone XL pipeline remains a high priority in a larger battle to combat climate change.

“I have always opposed Keystone XL,” tweeted Democrat presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders on Monday. “It isn’t a distraction — it’s a fundamental litmus test of your commitment to battle climate change.”

But the opposition has done little to stop the surge of Alberta crude flowing through the U.S. pipeline systems: Canadian crude oil exports to the U.S. soared to 3.4 million barrels per day in August – a new record.

The truth is that Keystone XL served no function except diverting our attention for more dirty Profit), 

Comments from Cory Morningstar

The reality is that oil production continues to break record highs. The reality is that the deadly 21st century oil via rail empire – engineered by Warren Buffett (BNSF) has been deadly to dozens with horrific environmental consequences to life and ecosystems. The reality is that these victims, along with these facts, fall under the same category as those on the front lines: the invisible. The fact that this so-called "victory" is being cheered symbolizes the greatest lack ofcritical thinking – an ongoing social engineering project that continues to surpass all expectations of the oligarchs who finance it.

September 17, 2014:

"U.S. crude oil imports from Canada hit a record high of nearly 3 million barrels per day in the week ended Sept. 12, U.S. Energy Information Administration data showed on Wednesday. The weekly data showed Canada, the top supplier of crude to the United States, exported 2.994 million barrels of crude to its southern neighbour. That was a 20 percent increase on the same period a year earlier. The four-week average to Sept. 12 was 2.932 million bpd. Canada has been able to ship more crude to the United States as production in the Alberta oil sands rises despite tight capacity on export pipelines, due in part to the emergence of crude-by-rail."

http://business.financialpost.com/…/canadian-crude-exports-…

November 4, 2015:

"In September, the U.S. imported 101.3 million barrels of crude oil from Canada, the most this year and the second-highest level in records going back to 2010, according to data from the Census Bureau." (that's 3.37 million barrels per day)

http://www.bloomberg.com/…/cheap-oil-helps-china-unseat-can…