Multiple homes on the outskirts of Fort Nelson, British Columbia have been damaged or destroyed and several neighbourhoods in Fort McMurray, Alberta have been evacuated as wildland firefighters confront two out-of-control blazes in each of the communities.
In Fort Nelson, the massive Parker Lake wildfire has burned homes in the outlying areas west of town, CTV News reported Wednesday evening. “This is a very sensitive topic. I can confirm there has been some structural damage in the outlying area of Fort Nelson,” said Mayor Rob Fraser of the Northern Rockies Regional Municipality. “There is no damage at all in the town proper, but out along the stretch of the Alaska Highway in close proximity to where this started, there has been some damage.”
He added that weather conditions were helping the B.C. Wildfire Service (BCWS) fight the blaze.
“When I was there [Wednesday] morning, it was fairly calm winds, we had overcast, I heard that rain was in the forecast, which is good,” he told EnergeticCity in nearby Fort St. John. “The fire was looking pretty positive this morning.”
While CTV said the Parker Lake fire stood at 8,433 hectares as of Wednesday, and EnergeticCity later placed its total breadth at 12,741, Fort Nelson was also facing down a second blaze, the Patry Creek wildfire, which had grown to 71,818 hectares. BCWS Fire Behaviour Specialist Ben Boghean said that fire had spread to within 25 kilometres north of town, driven by northwesterly winds that “created significant growth and extreme fire behaviour”.
In Fort McMurray, about 6,000 people in the neighbourhoods of Beacon Hill, Abasand, Prairie Creek, and Grayling Terrace were evacuated Tuesday as a wildfire approached the city from the southwest. Fort McMurray Today said the evacuation was expected to last at least until May 21.
The blaze “now consume(s) nearly 21,000 hectares as shifting winds and rising temperatures continue to accelerate its growth and push the flames closer to the municipality,” CBC reported. “Local roads and highways were choked with vehicles Tuesday afternoon as residents fled south.”
But regional fire chief Jody Butz said the fire was different from the 2016 wildfire known as The Beast that devastated Fort McMurray almost exactly eight years ago.
“Unlike the 2016 fire, the flames encroaching on the community now are not part of a crown fire,” a type of wildfire that “move rapidly through the treetops and tinder-dry fuels,” CBC wrote, citing Butz. “Instead, the current blaze is a ground fire that is moving low and more slowly through previously burned areas, giving crews a better chance of subduing the flames.”
Alberta Wildfire declared the danger level in the community extreme Wednesday evening and reported that Fort McMurray was dealing with two separate fires. The new one covers just one hectare, but is located just three kilometres north of town.
A Slower Start to the Season
Days ago, while Canadian forest management officials reported a slower, less dramatic start to this year’s wildfire season, responders in Fort Nelson were preparing for a “last stand” against a blaze that more than had doubled in size on Sunday and was just 1½ kilometres from the edge of town early in the week.
The Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre was reporting about 90 fires across country as of last Thursday, 12 of them burning out of control out of control, while warning that “the risk of hot, dry weather and severe fires remains high,” The Canadian Press reported. On the same day last year, 200 blazes were already in progress, most of them in Alberta, with 50 of them out of control.
“At the same time last year the situation was quite different,” Jean-François Duperré, director of emergency planning for the government operations centre at Public Safety Canada, said last week.
But days later, high winds were pushing the Parker Lake wildfire toward the town of Fort Nelson and the Fort Nelson First Nation, CBC reports.
“The forecast that I hear is that we’re going to get a westerly flow which could bring the fire closer to the community if it gets up to what it was like on Friday,” Fraser said Monday morning. “We’re trying to keep the fire away from the high fuel areas, so it’s all hands on deck.”
On Sunday, after more than 4,700 people had evacuated from the town, fire crews and emergency workers were preparing for a “last stand” if the fire advanced into the town, Fraser told The Associated Press. At that point, the blaze had swelled to nearly 53 square kilometres and was 2½ kilometres away. By 7 AM Monday, it had closed to 1½ kilometres, CBC writes.
The First Nation issued an expanded evacuation order covering one home and “many cultural sites” on Sunday, the national broadcaster adds.
‘Extreme Wildfire Behaviour’
Provincial Emergency Preparedness and Climate Readiness Minister Bowinn Ma told AP the area had faced drought conditions since last year, and there was no rain in the forecast. “We may begin to see volatile wildfire activity later this afternoon,” she added in a media availability Monday morning. “Let’s just say we are extremely concerned.”
The situation “is evolving rapidly,” Ma added on social media. “BCWS wildfire crews, local fire crews, helicopters, heavy equipment, and structural protection are responding to the Parker Lake wildfire. They’re doing anything they can to protect homes and the community.”
But as The Energy Mix went to virtual press late Monday night, BCWS said the blaze was showing “extreme wildfire behaviour” as it bore down on the community, The Canadian Press reports.
Earlier, Fraser told CP the fire was sparked when a tree came down in strong winds and fell onto a power line. By then, he said, the community was already keeping a close watch on two “holdover” fires from last year’s record wildfire season that had smouldered over the winter, reignited, and were also burning out of control somewhat farther away from town.
“Then right close to the community, we saw this other one, this third fire kick up yesterday afternoon, and the fire was very dark, or the smoke was very dark,” he said Saturday. “It was going very high in the air from the community, so you could see that something was going on.”
With a small number of locals defying the evacuation orders, officials stressed Sunday that it was time to go.
“If you are still in Fort Nelson, or anywhere in the evacuation order of the Parker Lake wildfire, I encourage you to leave,” Cliff Chapman, director of provincial operations at BCWS, said Sunday evening. “The fuels are as dry as we have ever seen. The wind is going to be sustained, and it is going to push the fire toward the community. Escape routes may be compromised and visibility will be poor as the fire continues to grow.”
But Rena Moore, who returned home when she got word of the blaze and was one of the few who were still in town Sunday, said her husband’s hotel was housing dozens of wildfire fighters responding to the blaze.
“If some of us weren’t here to help, feeding them,” she told CBC, “they’re not going to be able to fight for our community.”
Painful Memories
In Fort McMurray, which was devastated by the wildfire known as The Beast in 2016, residents were placed on evacuation alert Saturday as an out-of-control fire about 16 kilometres to the southwest “grew significantly in size,” the Globe and Mail reports. “An overnight temperature drop slowed the fire’s progress, and favourable winds blew the smoke away from the towns, the municipality said, but strong winds Saturday were expected to increase fire activity.”
Between Saturday and Sunday, the fire grew from 1,500 to 5,500 hectares, CBC writes. But it was still mostly tracking away from the city, and Alberta Wildfire didn’t expect it to grow much on Sunday.
Still, the fire brought back “painful memories” for people who lived through The Beast, the Globe says.
“My wife asked me if I have PTSD, seriously, because I’m constantly checking the news, checking the wildfire app, to see where we are,” said Chris Steedman, whose family rebuilt on the same lot after their home burned down in 2016. “But with my personality, I’m just the kind of person who doesn’t like waiting for events to happen. I want the fire out, or I want it to do its thing, because I can’t sit around waiting.”
CBC says the evacuation alert covers the regional municipality of Wood Buffalo, including Fort McMurray, nearby Saprae Creek, several neighbourhoods to the south of town, and Fort McMurray First Nation, which issued its alert before the city did.
“Overall it’s been an eerie feeling, but kind of a familiar one as well from 2016,” band manager and director of emergency management Cindy Miller told the Globe. “We wanted to make sure our residents were aware so they are ready, prepared, should it turn into an evacuation.”
News reports also had an out-of-control wildfire near Grande Prairie, Alberta growing to about 1,400 hectares as of Sunday afternoon. “Sometimes, these smaller municipalities don’t have the capability to fight a wildfire because it is such a big thing that a fire truck couldn’t, potentially, put it out,” said Alberta Wildfire public information officer Josée St-Onge. “So we’re there to help and we definitely want to support anything that’s happening out there.”
The fire activity had Environment and Climate Change Canada issuing 321 air quality statements spanning much of Alberta, including Edmonton, CBC reports. The worst conditions were reported in Grande Prairie and Peace River, said ECCC meteorologist Heather Rombough.
“It does seem like this is the trend that we’re heading toward,” she said. “It lines up with the science, the research that’s being done on climate change and that sort of thing. I mean, every year is going to be different, so it’s hard to really predict. But it does seem to be becoming more of what the new normal is.”
911 Service ‘Mostly Restored’
Across much of the Northwest Territories, Yukon, and northern B.C., mobile, land line, and Internet services, including 911 alerts, were “mostly restored” Sunday after a “unique set” of wildfires Friday took out fibre optic cable passing through Fort Nelson as well as the backup at Jean Marie River and Kakisa, NWT.
“This is the first time that we’ve had both our accesses to the Yukon fully severed, since we put in that redundancy,” said Tammy April, vice president of customer experience with telecom company Northwestel. “This was a little bit of a perfect storm.”
Kwanlin Dün First Nation Chief Sean Smith told CBC the situation was worrisome.
“This incident right now is something to be concerned about,” he said Saturday. But afterwards, it will be important to learn “how can we build up those systems to be more redundant,” knowing that “our whole life is dependent on communications and technology now.”
On Friday, a growing holdover fire closed parts of Highway 1 between Enterprise, NWT and the Alberta border, but the road had reopened by Saturday, CBC says. And as of Sunday, wildland firefighters were working to prevent an out-of-control fire from crossing a river toward the community of Fort Liard, 19 kilometres away. The highway connecting the community to B.C. was still closed.
“We are a little bit worried about the fuel and gas situation and stuff,” said Mayor Genevieve McLeod. “But I’m pretty sure everyone’s gassed up at the moment and we’re trying our best not to drain any resources that we do have.”
