‘THE BEAST’ IS FINALLY DEAD.
A WILDFIRE THAT FORCED TENS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE TO FLEE FOR THEIR LIVES IN NORTHERN ALBERTA MORE THAN A YEAR AGO IS FINALLY OUT
IT STARTS
On Sunday, May 1, 2016, 15 firefighters and four helicopters were fighting a wildfire — officially called MWF-009 — that was blazing over 120-hectares southwest of Fort McMurray, Alberta. Bo Luft, who was walking toward his daughter’s home on Beacon Hill Drive, sensed its power. “I can see it’s getting worse and not getting better,” he told The Calgary Herald. How right he was.
IT’S OVER?
The next day people who had voluntary evacuated their homes were told to return as the fire moved away from the town of 88,000 people. “We’re certainly very happy that no one’s had their properties damaged, no one’s been hurt, and we hope that continues,” Fort McMurray Fire Chief Darby Allen told a news conference Monday. But later the wind shifted.
GET OUT
On Tuesday, the entire town was ordered evacuated as the fire turned into an inferno and doubled overnight from 1,250 hectares to an estimated 2,600 hectares. Highway 63 north and south of town became choked with traffic as residents fled. “We’re just waiting to see what’s left of the city,” said Abasand resident Mallory Hood. Former city councillor Russell Thomas told how he was stuck in gridlock traffic and could see flames from his vehicle. “It truly is a catastrophic event,” he said.
A NASTY, DIRTY FIRE
By Thursday, Alberta declared a provincial state of emergency. An estimated 1,600 homes and businesses had been destroyed, Premier Rachel Notley said. “This is a nasty, dirty fire,” Chief Allen said. “There are certainly areas of the city that have not been burned, but this fire will look for them and it will find them and it will want to take them.”
IT MOVES ON
In the days that followed, crews on bulldozers carved out firebreaks. Massive tank-sized firefighting vehicles from oilsands operations blasted the forests with foam, and firefighters worked without sleep. “We had one guy stand at the end of his driveway, watch his house burn to the ground and then put in another 18 hours,” said Nick Waddington, president of the Fort McMurray firefighters union. A week after it started, the fire had moved on. “It was a beast, it was an animal, it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen,” said Chief Allen as a bus carried the first media officially allowed into Fort McMurray on May 9.
RESIDENTS RETURN
A month after the blaze started, residents began to return to Fort Mac. “Today is not the end of the story. It is not a return to normal life and it’s not yet a celebration,” Alberta Premier Rachel Notley told reporters on June 1. “There’s still a lot of work to recover and rebuild Wood Buffalo. This will be the work of years, not weeks.”
IT’S DEAD
The Beast officially died on Aug. 2, wildfire information officer Lynn Daina announced this week. She said they had to wait for winter to be over to see if any smoke or heat remained from the fire. Wildfire crews will continue to monitor all areas. “With a fire that size it takes time to make sure it is fully extinguished, so we wait for a winter’s worth of snow and then in the summer we check to see if any smoke pops up and if not we use advanced heat detectors from helicopters and make sure there is no remaining heat,” Daina said. “Once we determine there is no remaining heat left on the fire, we determine it is extinguished and out.”