Holy shit that's a bad fire. 80,000 evacuees. Hospital burned down, gas stations blowing up. Raining fire!
Provincial state of emergency up here right now. Thankfully the evacuation process has gone excellently. The only people killed so far were in traffic accidents off-highway IIRC. Rained today but more dry weather on the way. Doubly bad for Fort Mac considering the oil and gas collapse in the last year. Thousands of people have left the area or been downsized.
Talked to a depute sheriff today (phone) that is south of this fire on the USA side. They are already hiring fire fighters. They are anticipating another bad fire season, and want to be better prepared than last season’s disaster. Hope Canada can get that monster under control.
http://calgaryherald.com/news/local...y-step-up-to-help-fort-mcmurray-fire-evacuees 'We understand what they're feeling': Syrian refugees in Calgary step up to help Fort McMurray fire evacuees When Rita Khanchet saw images of a vicious wildfire destroying homes and uprooting tens of thousands of people in Fort McMurray, she immediately thought of Syria, the homeland she fled just five months ago with her husband and young son. Khanchet and her family know first-hand how scary it is to leave a community, home and possessions behind, and she was determined to help the people of Fort McMurray. “It’s not easy to lose everything. We can understand them more than anyone in Canada. We were in the same situation,” said Khanchet, who lives in Calgary. “Me and my family wanted to do something for these people. Canadian society helped us when we came to Canada.” Syrian refugees across Calgary are now giving what little they have to northern Albertans, after Khanchet posted an appeal in Arabic on a private Facebook group the newcomers created and frequent. “(Canadians) gave us everything. And now it’s time to return the favour,” she wrote. A fellow Syrian refugee translated and shared Khanchet’s post with a wider community on the Syrian Refugee Support Group page, and within hours offers of help came in from new Canadians determined to give back to their new home. “All the Syrians are saying, ‘I’m ready to give, I’m ready to give,’ ” said Saima Jamal, a co-founder of the Syrian Refugee Support Group. “It’s amazing. You have to understand how little these guys have . . . But they understand the idea of an entire city losing their home. That’s something they can easily relate to. They went through that.”
During last season’s bad fires, Canada sent WA & Idaho a lot of help, including fire fighting planes. Hope we are sending them help now.
I can not find any reports of USA sending help, yet. However, I did find this information. My guess, the USA is now preparing firefighting crews to go to this fire. Alberta sent crews to Montana, Idaho & Oregon last summer to help fight our fires. I incorrectly mentioned WA. in a previous post.
