Evacuation order issued as wildfire threatening Fort McMurray draws closer

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Thousands of residents in the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo have been ordered to leave their homes as a wildfire burning southwest of Fort McMurray continues to draw closer to the community.

Several neighbourhoods in Fort McMurray are being evacuated to make way for firefighters. The Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo issued the evacuation order Tuesday afternoon after declaring a state of local emergency.

The evacuation order is in effect for the neighbourhoods of Beacon Hill, Abasand, Prairie Creek and Grayling Terrace. 

A wildfire threatening the community has now consumed more than 10,000 hectares as shifting winds and rising temperatures continue to accelerate its growth and push the flames closer to the municipality. 

All 6,000 residents in the evacuation zone were ordered to leave by 4 p.m. MT, the municipality said.

Local roads and highways were choked with vehicles Tuesday afternoon as residents fled south.

People who are unable to evacuate themselves are being asked to report to designated muster points, where transit buses will be on standby to take them and their pets to safety. 

Different than 2016 

Officials say the fire threatening Fort McMurray is a different kind of beast from the 2016 wildfire that devastated the community.

Jody Butz, the regional fire chief, told reporters Tuesday afternoon the current fire behaviour is extreme but less volatile that what was seen eight years ago when the entire community was forced to flee.

Unlike the 2016 fire, the flames encroaching on the community now are not part of a crown fire, Butz said. Crown fires move rapidly through the treetops and tinder-dry fuels. 

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, Butz said.

“The fuel that was there, it’s different,” he said. “All the dead and downed trees that were there, that’s what’s being burned right now, along with some dry grass. 

“It’s a surface fire and it’s running along the surface in these extreme conditions.” 

The neighbourhoods under evacuation are most at risk.

Crews will be better able to defend these areas with the residents gone, Butz said. Many of the neighbourhood streets now under evacuation were devastated by fire in 2016 — Abasand and Beacon Hill were among the hardest hit.  

Officials…