bats

It's looking pretty grim up there. I read that the hospital is being evacuated and as it's the only one in the city to where and how do they move thei patients?

Alan2005

Just watching it on the news now. 80,000 people being evacuated.

They are also saying that the whole town might burn.

magnumpi

The warnings were on Toronto news, I just seen the update on a Facebook Chanel and its Grimm !!

mikelincs

Quite a lot about it on the BBC news here n the UK this morning, looks really grim and very frightening, hope no-one on BE is affected.

MillieF

How dreadful. I was just reading it on the BBC. 80,000 people just being told to go is unbelievable. Go where? These poor poor souls.

moneypenny20

And how do they all get out safely? It's a mind boggling number. wind changes direction etc etc. Doesn't bear thinking about.

magnumpi

Some could only go north as fires engulfed the highway south. They aiming to get to the oil field camps and an indigenous area/camp.

The lucky ones who managed to go south headed for Edmonton. But some ran out of gas on the highways, they waited for RCMP to bring more gas

HGerchikov

I have a Facebook connection with a lady there. She is in the group that can only go North. It took half an hour to get out of their street (they are 5 houses from the corner). Last I heard they had run out of gas and were parked at the bottom of an underpass preparing to spend the night. Terrifying.

Howefamily

Was watching the news and its staggering. I would be terrified.

caretaker

Today could be worse. Fortunately no casualties yet and one birth during the evacuation. One for the good guys.

MarkG

Yeah, a friend of a friend was working up there, but is hopefully out safe by now.

How does something like that even happen? Is Fort McMurray in the forests?

Juggernaut1064

Its Bush/Forest up there and with the temps in the high 20s and moving to low 30s its a tinder box. Trucked in there a lot and its a real wilderness getting there so no wonder people are running out of gas.
A wild fire this early in the season could burn for a very very long time.

Just remembered i have a traffic cam link and there are some in ft mac and on approach, just mainly smoke but heres the link

http://www.ezbordercrossing.com/bord.../#.VyoK_YQgvZ5

caretaker

From the map that was on the news it looks like it could have started around the highway, could have been a cigarrette butt.

Juggernaut1064

Very likely, a lot just throw them out the window. When i smoked i had a plastic pot you can buy for that.
Another Brit trucking east of Fargo on the interstate got a big fine when a state trooper saw a butt come out of his window one evening, HUGE fire risk although the driver thought he was being harassed lol His attitude likely meant no chance of just a warning lol

bert07

The hospital patients are mostly being evacuated by air to Edmonton, I don't know whether they are flying out of Fort Mac or one of the oilsands runways.

Those going north have been sent to the oil camps, many workers have been flown out of the area to make room for the evacuees. South have gone to la biche and Edmonton (northlands has a reception centres set up ready for thousands).

The big issue with the evacuation is people running out of gas on the highways and needing to wait for help - there have been many people heading up from Edmonton with thousands of litres of fuel and tankers going up to help.

We are in Ed and it's very surreal - everyone wants to help but it's too early to be able to do anything physical.