Fort McMurray mandatory evac

[DanWEC]

Must be terrifying for the residents. Recent photos show the fire right along 63 along the evac route.
Positive thoughts for all residents, and all those fighting on the ground and in air attack.

[7ECA]

Reminds me of Slave Lake fire in 2011. Shocking to think this is happening this early in the season.

[AvExpress]

I don't see the airport shut down, just the tower notamed closed. Has any airline been offering evac services?

[John Desramaux]

Link to Tweet of fire plum from the air....
https://twitter.com/Cass403/status/727666966614278144
Link to Tweet from Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo initial damage assessment
https://twitter.com/RMWoodBuffalo/statu ... 6203981824

[co-joe]

Apparently he entire hospital got evacuated. Must have been a busy day for the medevac fleet.

[Chris M]

Apparently he entire hospital got evacuated. Must have been a busy day for the medevac fleet.

The Premier just mentioned that WJ flew the patients out.

[5400AirportRdSouth]

Alberta Health chartered at least one WJ 737 for ambulatory patient evacuations. Trust me though, the entire medevac fleet and then some were busy all night taking stretcher patients.

[CDN106]

I don't see the airport shut down, just the tower notamed closed. Has any airline been offering evac services?

Canadian North is filling planes out of Albian/Horizon with workers and people fleeing their homes. Running a full schedule today. Cariboo doing the same, also saw an Air North bird up there

[pollyperkins]

WJ sent 8 rescue flights last night to Firebag and is continuing with extra flights today. Encore is flying in empty a/c to YMM to extract as many out.

[TheStig]

25 years of financially starving the Armed Forces, and we're now seeing the results. 2 Days to reach the sit of a domestic natural disaster despite its close proximity to Cold Lake.

Thoughts are with everyone in the region.

[Kitzbuhel]

25 years of financially starving the Armed Forces, and we're now seeing the results. 2 Days to reach the sit of a domestic natural disaster despite its close proximity to Cold Lake.

Thoughts are with everyone in the region.

Another ignorant comment... Why do you think it took two days? Do you think they call the military for every small problem in case it develops into something bigger? Once they were called they met their mandated response time. Which isn't 48h.

[plhought]

Re: The Military,

If one had bothered to watch the latest briefing, they had the Commander of Land Forces West in the emerg. Ops centre. Their is two Griffons in Conklin to assist first responder movements and evac should they need. A Herc (J model) is tasked to begin moving food/water/whatever either beginning tonight or tomorrow morning. The General and Alberta Emerg. Management agreed that sending military boots on the ground wasn't prudent at the moment, as they are not trained wildfire or structural firefighters.

Just want to give a big props to the Navcanada crew and all the airport workers, who kept operating the airport through all this chaos. Yesterday afternoon when things were quickly getting out of hand, they were still running the airspace like pros.

[TheStig]

Thanks. What other ignorant comments do you feel have been made? Maybe you can inform me then, what is the response time we can expect in instances of natural disasters?

I'm not blaming anyone in the Military, I'm blaming the Federal Government. As a taxpayer I'd be happy to see my money used to properly fund the Armed Forces. Protecting Canadian home and abroad has been treated as a back burner issue for too long.

It's been inspiring to see how quickly both the major airlines and oil companies jump into action providing transportation and accommodations for those in need.

[Old fella]

Be thankful none of those hard working folks/families lost their lives........

[iflyforpie]

Yep.... people are losing their homes.... and yet it still has to be about dirty politics.

[timel]

Quebec is sending airplanes (4 water bombers) to help with the fire. No risks of fire here. Hopefully it gets under control very soon!

[plhought]

The fire has pretty much reached the airport.



Not gonna be a good night.

Webcam section on AWWS is down.

[DanWEC]

Well it hasn't reached the airport till it's reached the airport. Vis has been been 1-2 miles. Luckily by its very nature an airport is a good fire break as long as the structures are safe.
Stay strong out there boy n girls.

[Koalemos]

@TheStig
Your reaction is being questioned as you made a vague statement damning the federal government based on your opinion of military funding with no specifics or useful information. It comes across as political noise, finger pointing. Would having 10 Hercs and Chinooks sit in Cold Lake 24/7 in case there's a need to evacuate in Alberta have helped? I doubt it. Most people will want to drive out so they can take belongings, and won't leave until the last minute anyways. The province/local levels of governments sent out the necessary evacuation notices (radio, TV, internet, etc) and EMS and Police forces did what they had to do. People drove or went in buses, gas tankers were brought in to provide fuel for stranded motorists. The government and military are organizing airlifts of supplies to refugee camps at the various oil company sites that have strips, and a Herc and transport helicopters are either in Cold Lake, or on standby to be used as required.

The following link is to one of many articles floating around, and has an interview with a military official giving info on how they have/are responding.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau ... 23?cmp=rss

Thankfully, we haven't heard of any fatalities so far. This is an extremely difficult situation to manage. This is the Provincial government's show, in coordination with other levels of governments and agencies. Could they have been more proactive? Maybe in a few months time they'll have that answer in hindsight. So far tho, it sounds like its going as best as can be expected given the situation and how fast it developed.

[John Desramaux]

Picture from Twitter of Albian Sands AB last night

https://twitter.com/bulldogaviation/sta ... 3814887424

[Rockie]

Finger pointing will come later if there were deficiencies, for now all I can see is everybody doing what they can to save as much as they can. This is a fast moving wildfire and the fact no one was hurt either by the fire itself or in the rush to get out of its way is a testament to the authorities and the people of Ft. Mcmurray.

[TheStig]

Kitzbuhl, phlought, and Koalemos,

Fair enough, I withdraw my criticism. On Tuesday the media reported that a state of emergency had been declared and the military would be arriving in 2 days. Thank you all for bringing that facts to light, I'm glad to hear that the military resources are available, just not required.

[co-joe]

The real finger pointing will be at "a" government, but not the federal one. Notley just cut 15 mil from fire suppression budget. The tanker crews just went from 130 day paid standby to 93 days. A friend in the know estimated it at a 30K pay cut. At the time of the fire break out, there was one lone Electra in the YMM area. Odds are a full compliment of IA aircraft could have made a big difference while the fire was small. She rolled the dice in the driest year ever, and the residents of YMM lost.

That said the fire started in a cut block south of town with the wind driving it towards more dry fuel, and the town itself. My math skills add it up to arson, but I'm no expert. Has anyone seen the lightning records over the preceding 24 hours leading up to the fire? Hoping my uneducated guess is off base, but there are a lot of desperate out of work people who had already lost everything, now the losses are widespread. Sad.

There was news of a fatal car crash in the evacuation, but still losses of life could have been huge. Praying for safe flying for all our fellow pilots in fire suppression, and in the aerial relief effort.

[futboler14]

If there are any Fort Mac pilots that have made it to YEG and need a place to stay, let me know. I live in Leduc. I am heading to airport now to help out. Message me on here.

[DanWEC]

The real finger pointing will be at "a" government, but not the federal one. Notley just cut 15 mil from fire suppression budget. The tanker crews just went from 130 day paid standby to 93 days. A friend in the know estimated it at a 30K pay cut. At the time of the fire break out, there was one lone Electra in the YMM area. Odds are a full compliment of IA aircraft could have made a big difference while the fire was small. She rolled the dice in the driest year ever, and the residents of YMM lost.

Seriously? That's a ludicrous decision. After the historic fire season last year, Saskatchewan increased availability and started their contracts earlier, adding a couple weeks to 100 day contract we previously had.
It was apparently an easy prediction by the gov't wx analysts that we'd have the same early season dry crossover conditions that would result in, well, exactly what's happening. I'm sure the AB gov't had the same info.
The question is if there was an actual effect on response, or if it's just an accounting move to allow more of the money to come from emergency funds instead.

To cut fire services during this current climate cycle would border on criminal negligence and incompetence.