As of Saturday morning,there was no improvement in the wildfire catastrophe that has virtually emptied what remains of Fort McMurray,Alberta,sending its 80,000 residents fleeing north or south from the conflagration.According to Federal Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale,the situation remains unpredictable and dangerous.The convoys that guided around 7500 evacuees from their crowded refuges in the oilsands camps north of the city on Friday would continue today,he said.Hopefully another 7500 of the 20,000 northern evacuees would be convoyed to safety south of Fort McMurray today.The residents of the city were split up into those fleeing north and those rushing south when the main highway through town,Highway 63,was closed by the raging blaze.They are taking refuge as far south as Edmonton and Calgary in everywhere from hotels to reception centres and the homes of friends and relatives.
Police are marshaling the evacuees into small convoys of 50 vehicles each that are then led down the road one convoy at a time.A handful of stragglers in the city have been escorted out by the RCMP.Wildland firefighters from other provinces are being brought into the area to relieve their exhausted Alberta colleagues.Fires or the threat of fires are currently rampant across the entire boreal forest in the dry and windswept conditions.
The fire,which is likely to burn on for weeks,will result in losses of well into the billions of dollars.So far,there are no known fatalties from it,but it is surely a chapter in the history of North American wildland fire,given the scope of the evacuations and the extreme fire behaviour,such as firenadoes,whirlwinds of flame that have been spotted among the trees and brush of Fort McMurray.
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