Major forest fire in Fort Mac

Update, please read the notes before viewing the images

https://medium.com/@mcmurraymap/damage-assessment-may-5th-2016-eb91d5efe45#.fn8nw29ar

 

Gotta give the RCMP plenty of time to kick in the doors of the houses left standing and loot them like in High River I guess.

 

That may be due to the change in wind direction and wind speed in the weather forecast for tomorrow, which may bring smoke and embers to the camp and possibly affect the road.

Update 10 Minutes Later:

The wind direction has already changed, smoke has arrived in Fort McKay.

 

Shell and Suncor have increased the number of evacuation flights at their airstrips. The C-130 military transport plane is now in use for those evacuations as well. Here is the military flight attendant doing the pre-flight safety instruction for yesterday's C-130 flight from Fort Mac to Edmonton. Much better flight safety instructions than Westjet:

 

In a situation loke a fire gas lines and what not need to be capped all hot spots extinguished, could be a month or more till some residents are allowed back in

 

Syncrude has shut down in an orderly fashion according to a Syncrude press release from a few minutes ago. Obviously it was not orderly and they shut it down in a hurry after getting a fire consultants report on the direction of the smoke last night:

"In order to ensure the safety of our personnel and the integrity of our operations, we are taking all units offline in a safe and orderly manner. There is no imminent threat from fire, however, smoke has reached Mildred Lake site.

It’s Syncrude’s intention to have all units suspended and all personnel removed from Mildred Lake this weekend. We have sufficient busing and air capacity to execute this in a timely manner. The evacuation of personnel began early Saturday morning.

Syncrude will bring units back online when there is no risk to personnel or operations. Despite these extraordinary measures, the jobs of our more than 4,800 employees are secure."​

 

Praying for y'all n everybody up there.