Canada Wildfire Still Burning — Plans For Re-Entry To Fort McMurray Scheduled To Begin June 1 [Video]


As reported earlier on The Daily Croton, the Canada wildfire is still burning, but rain and cold temperatures have slightly dampened the massive blaze. The wildfire started on May 1 in the city of Fort McMurray in Canada and resulted in the evacuation of at least 100,000 residents of the area, including oil workers at oil facilities to the north of the wildfire. The evacuation of the oil facilities also caused oil prices to rise due to oil extraction ceasing, which was estimated as a loss of 1.2 million barrels of oil daily. Suncor stated on Friday that it was planning to bring small numbers of employees back to operations as early as Monday in order to restart production there.

Oil workers aren’t the only ones who will be allowed to return, however. The Canadian government published a pamphlet on Monday for evacuees planning to return to their homes. Unfortunately, some won’t have homes to return to as the fire destroyed entire neighborhoods in the initial wildfire blaze, but for the most part, the city of Fort McMurray remains standing. The emergency website for the area around Alberta, Canada, displays updates about the status of the situation, and as of right now, the website still shows the wildfire status as “out of control.”

The website also has a link for emergency updates for wildfire evacuees and includes a booklet they can download that addresses information about re-entry and what they should expect. The website urges people returning to bring “basic necessities to last for up to 14 days including food, drinking water and prescriptions.” Authorities advise that the community has been affected profoundly by a wildfire, and services that are normally relied on may be limited for some time. The re-entry will possibly begin by June 1, but will occur in phases that will allow people who live in or have businesses in certain areas to return in order to reduce traffic flow.

A fire map is also available for residents who were evacuated from the wildfire area that shows which areas were damaged. The map allows residents to enter their address to determine if their homes were damaged by the wildfire. Residents will be allowed to return to their damaged homes to inspect for any remaining valuable property before cleanup; authorities may have already confiscated valuables such as safes and safe boxes which can be claimed by the residents. Return to properties still have to be approved by authorities as some areas are still under a state of emergency and considered unsafe for re-entry.

In an earlier Inquisitr article, it was stated that the Canada wildfire in the Fort McMurray area could burn for months. At the time of publication of that article, it was estimated that over 400,000 acres had been destroyed by the massive wildfire. As of today, the Canada wildfire is still burning and has consumed over 523,000 hectares which is the equivalent of 1.3 million acres, according to an article on The Comment. That is over 2,000 square miles and almost twice as large as the entire state of Rhode Island.

The Comment says that the fire also destroyed about 10 percent of buildings in the town of Fort McMurray but has not grown in size in recent days, although it’s still deemed out of control. The clearing of heavy smoke in the area has also helped officials get a better handle on the size of the wildfire. It seems unlikely that things will get back to normal there anytime soon, but authorities are hopeful that the fire will at least soon be more under control. Then the city can start the rebuilding process and residents can perhaps get their lives back on track. Here’s to hoping that Canada will start getting a lot more rain.

[Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images]

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