caretaker

This morning the airport was open but for departures only.

magnumpi

News - Fort McMurray wildfires witnessed in 10 terrifying tweets - The Weather Network

Looks bad, very bad.

It was suggested on the news that the people effected may have been short of work, struggling to pay for mortgages and may not have had enough left over for house insurance

scrubbedexpat091

CBC article says people have been stranded on hwy running out of gas as they had to leave with what they had.

Apparently AB transportation is escorting fuel truck along the hwy to provide fuel to those stranded.

AB requested assistance from feds and dept of defense is offering any all assets to Alberta.

I a originally from wildfire territory and have experienced some big ones but never seen anything this big.

I feel for the poor folks dealing with this fire.

Edmonton is said to be getting 20k evacuees today.

MarkG

Don't know about all banks, but ours requires insurance to get the mortgage. And, every couple of years, they asked us to send the insurance details to them.

magnumpi

Mind does too, maybe they ment houses that were already paid for?

Either way losses in this are going to be harsh and hard to replace with money alone

MarkG

Yeah, it was bad enough for us just with a fire in the living room last year. This will be far worse.

AlliF

A really horrible drawback of living in Victoria, Australia, was the prevalence of bushfires. All through bushfire season you would have your emergency bag packed by the door and would check the fire warnings for your area over the course of the day.

The year we left I saw a fire came as close as a few km's away from our house - my husband could see the smoke over 30kms away in the city from his office. One minute we were fine, next it was too late to evacuate just stay inside. It veered off on a different course just before it hit our little village. I was absolutely terrified! I really feel for the poor people affected by this fire.

MarkG

Yeah, one of my uncles moved to Australia after WW2, and once told us about the time a fire came so close it burned the paint off his fence before the wind changed and blew it away from the house. I think that was one of the reasons he moved back to the UK later.

Pollyana

Isn't that generally for buildings insurance though? One of the big problems in poorer areas in Aus that are hit by disasters is the contents insurance. Even if the bricks and mortar are covered there is no money to insure the contents. And people living in mobile homes probably have no mortgages anyway - hence they can get away without buildings insurance.

magnumpi

Over 1,600 buildings destroyed that's a lot of people needing homes, let's hope the Gov can help these people as much as they helped the Syrian refugees. Fingers crossed !!

scrubbedexpat091

I doubt insurance is top of the priorities of people barely making mortgage payments, and they likely had it before loss of employment.

scrubbedexpat091

This article as interactive map from NASA showing how large its gotten over 48 hours.

Fort McMurray fire interactive map: NASA data shows fire invading town | Globalnews.ca

scrubbedexpat091

I am not an expert, but to me this seems a little low on the manpower side of fighting the fire. From Global News.

"Approximately 250 firefighters, 12 helicopters are now currently engaged in battling the Fort McMurray wildfire"

Steve_

What I couldn't understand is why the RCMP didn't reverse traffic on northbound Hwy 63. (a) you don't want people driving into a fire and (b) you don't want people sitting in a traffic jam during a fire.

I've been in a really bad disaster and that was SOP, reverse the traffic on the freeway so everyone can get out more quickly.

It looks absolutely appalling. It looks on TV exactly the same as the area around where I live, plus it's scorching here at the moment too. I can't help thinking all it would take is some dickhead neighbour to throw out a cigarette and poof, it would all go up in flame the same way.

Which has in fact happened a few blocks away in the past.

I think I'm going to go and look on realtor.ca for something made from brick...

moneypenny20

I was looking at the place on Google Maps yesterday and decided I'd find a boat and get out via the river. Looking at the interactive maps maybe I wouldn't.