Thousands of people evacuated, villages threatened, oil installations shut down: two days after declaring a state of emergency, Alberta is preparing to ask the federal government for help on Monday to fight fires ” unprecedented “.
Monday morning, more than a hundred forest or brush fires were still active in the province, including 28 considered “out of control” by the authorities.
Firefighters focus on those that threaten homes. Around the city of Edmonton, many roads were blocked.
Several oil companies — Vermilion Energy and Crescent Point Energy — said Monday they had to cut production in places because of the fires.
The province has opened several shelters for the evacuees but many of them fled with their camper vans or caravans and regrouped on vacant lots. Some are staying with friends or family, like Jerry Greiner, a resident of Drayton Valley, 150 km west of Edmonton.
“Friday, we could see the smoke and there was a fairly strong wind,” he told AFP, tears in his eyes.
“In the evening, we received the first alert around 10 p.m. and then the final evacuation notice around 11 p.m. We quickly took our bags to go to our friends’, adds the 55-year-old man with gray hair, who is evacuated for the first time.
Around this small town of 7,000 inhabitants, completely evacuated, the forest and the fields are blackened by the flames even if most of the houses have been preserved, noted an AFP journalist. Access to the city is still forbidden, caught in the smoke, the fire being brought under control but not completely extinguished.
Installed in a makeshift campsite, Dorothy Denis, another evacuee, is in shock. “It’s scary and surreal,” she repeats. “Each time the alert is given, we are on the alert. We want to watch but we are afraid that they will announce that our city is on fire”.
In Fox Lake, northern Alberta, a massive fire destroyed 20 homes, a store and a police station. Residents were evacuated by boat and helicopter.
Military support
The province of Alberta, one of the world’s largest oil producers, “had a hot, dry spring and with so much kindling, it only takes a few sparks to start some really scary fires”, explained this weekend Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.
The latter, who is in the middle of the campaign for her re-election, must meet Monday with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
“We know they can provide military support. We’re going to see what firefighting and engineering expertise they can bring,” Danielle Smith told reporters on Sunday evening. The day before, she had described these fires as “unprecedented”.
Alberta, like British Columbia and Saskatchewan, is currently experiencing “abnormally dry” conditions and even “severe drought” in places, according to the latest federal government records.
In recent years, the west of the country has been repeatedly hit by extreme weather events, the intensity and frequency of which have been increased by global warming, including a “historic” heat dome, which caused hundreds of deaths and was followed by major fires.
The authorities hope that the arrival of cooler temperatures and a little rain since Sunday, at least in the south of the province, will help contain the situation.
However, conditions remain unstable and it is difficult to accurately determine the extent of the damage.
Two wildfires are also out of control in British Columbia and authorities have warned that strong winds are expected in the coming days.
In May 2016, in Alberta, Fort McMurray, known to be the largest industrial oil sands complex in the world, was marked by a gigantic fire, which remains the costliest disaster in Canadian history.