Growing wildfire continues to ravage Canada’s north

By Barry Ellsworth

TRENTON, Canada

A raging Canadian wildfire has burned about 210,000 acres in Alberta province where tens of thousands of residents have been evacuated from the city of Fort McMurray, officials said Thursday.

“We have very, very high winds right now so it is possible, absolutely, that it could get larger,” Alberta Premier Rachel Notley told CTV television news.

Notley did not give an updated figure on the number of homes and buildings destroyed, but it stood at about 1,600 as of Wednesday.

Fort McMurray, home to Canada’s oil sands, is an isolated city in the province’s north and about 80,000 residents have fled south to escape the flames that have leveled neighborhoods and businesses.

But approximately 8,000 residents under mandatory evacuation order went north to the oil sands camps and are now cut off as the fire has cut a wide swath south of the city, blocking the road southward.

Officials said they are planning to use military aircraft to fly the 8,000 from the camps south to the provincial capital of Edmonton and bring in food and supplies for the remainder of those there.

Environment Canada called for a forecast of winds gusting to 50 kilometers per hour (31 miles per hour) Thursday evening, fanning the flames,with no rain expected until Monday.

The fire is so massive that the conflagration is making its own weather, forming clouds and creating lightning, another factor that could spread the flames.

There are now more than 1,100 firefighters, 145 helicopters, 138 pieces of heavy equipment and 22 air [water] tankers fighting the flames, provincial officials told CTV.

But with tinder dry conditions and shifting winds, the forces marshaled against the wildfire cannot extinguish the blazes.

“Let me be clear, air tankers are not going to stop this fire,” senior wildfire manager Chad Morrison told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). ‘This is an extreme fire event. It is going to continue to push through these dry conditions until we actually get some significant rain to help us.

“I expect this fire to continue to grow over the next number of days.”

A state of emergency enacted Wednesday is still in effect and officials have also imposed a province-wide burning ban, including those for cooking and camping.

Fire officials told the CBC they do not yet know what started the wildfire.