‘THE BEAST’ IS STILL ALIVE
THE FIRE THAT NEARLY DESTROYED FORT McMURRAY CONTINUES TO BURN
Six months after it sent the population of Fort McMurray fleeing, the wildfire known as MWF-009 is still burning.
The fire can no longer be seen; there is no smoke or open flames. But in a remote section of Alberta and Saskatchewan far from the city it nearly destroyed, the blaze is still being carefully watched.
“Just given the size, scope and complexity of the Fort McMurray wildfire, firefighters will continue to monitor the area,” said Laura Stewart, wildfire information officer with the government of Alberta.
Known by firefighters as the Horse River Fire, it is so named because the fire began May 1 near a small waterway known as Horse River. The fire was not an act of nature. By June, fire investigators were definitively saying that somebody who visited the Horse River trail system on the Sunday before the evacuation was responsible.
However, it is not known what exactly sparked the fire. Given the searing, tinder-dry conditions on May 1 in northern Alberta, it could have been caused by anything from a discarded cigarette to the spark from an ATV.
Two hectares in size when it was first spotted, it took just three days to grow to 10,000 hectares and swoop into Fort McMurray.
The blaze has been declared “under control” since July 4. Nevertheless, in the months since, the fire has entered a kind of hibernation that may allow it to survive the winter.
The phenomenon is known as a “holdover fire.” Long after the flames and smoke of an out-of-control wildfire have died down, the fire persists by smouldering underground.
If left unchecked, the holdover fire can flare up again come spring. In this way, a sufficiently large wildfire can presumably burn for years.
It’s also why, as soon as the 2017 fire season begins following the snow melt, the first order of business for Alberta wildland firefighters will be to dispatch crews to find and destroy the last remnants of MWF-009.
The standard mopping-up procedure is to first fly over the area by helicopter to search for invisible “hot spots” using an infrared camera.
“Honestly, you wouldn’t see anything; these hot spots are quite deep down,” said Stewart.
Should any spots turn up, crews will then be dropped in to begin the elaborate process of “cold-trailing” the remnants of the Horse River Fire.
Cold- trailing involves firefighters carefully moving along the forest floor feeling for signs of heat. As warm spots turn up, they are dug out with picks and shovels and doused with water; water pumped in from a neighbouring creek if possible, or, if not, dropped from a helicopter.
“Literally, you’ve got men and women out there on their hands and knees feeling for heat,” said Kevin Skrepnek, chief fire information officer for the province of B.C., where crews similarly have to tangle with the spring ritual of snuffing out holdover fires before they flare up.
In fact, only weeks before the outbreak of the Horse River Fire, Alberta crews needed to cold-trail another massive wildfire that had survived the winter.
The 2016 fire season began around High Level, Alta., where the smouldering remnants of a 40,000-hec- tare fire from 2015 were extinguished.
While the winter can usually snuff out smaller fires, giant history-making conflagrations like the Horse River Fire typically do not go quietly.
At its peak, the Horse River Fire was reaching temperatures of 1,000 C, sending radiated heat deep under the forest floor where it could ignite peat, tree roots and even mineral-rich soil.
Dubbed “The Beast” by Fort McMurray regional fire chief Darby Allen, the Horse River Fire was deemed far too powerful to contain when it first began advancing on the suburban outskirts of the oilsands capital.
Instead, Allen’s crews were forced to orchestrate a last-minute triage to keep the roaring flames back from key parts of the city.
Ultimately, in a matter of hours the flames claimed nearly 2,000 structures and caused at least $3.6 billion in damage.
Despite a military-sized scrambling of firefighting resources to northern Alberta, The Beast was ultimately tamed largely by weather. After the fire had crossed the border into Saskatchewan, it was hammered by a string of summer rains that would also bring flooding to the beleaguered residents of Fort McMurray.
It’s not known how much of the fire survives, but as crews rest up for the winter in preparation for the final blow against the Horse River Fire, the rebuilding of the city it struck has only just begun.
With many residents still living in trailers and temporary accommodations as they rebuild their homes, city officials say it could take until 2021 for Fort McMurray to be restored.