Lightning sparks wildfires outside Fort McMurray, no risks so far to homes

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A dark plume of smoke could be seen over Fort McMurray, but Alberta Wildfire says the wildfires are far enough away that there is no risk to Fort McMurray. Multiple wildfires have also sparked across the region from lightning storms in recent days, but none are posing a risk to the city, rural or Indigenous communities, or industrial sites.

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The plume comes from the Algar Lake Complex, a cluster of seven out of control wildfires southwest of Fort McMurray. Wildfire Information Officer Emily Smith says the closest wildfire is about 52 kilometres southwest of Fort McMurray and 15 kilometres west of Highway 63. The fires were spotted Wednesday and the largest one is more than 5.8 square kilometres in size.

There are 17 firefighters assigned to the Algar Lake Complex after some were pulled away on Thursday for safety reasons. There are also five helicopters attacking the wildfire with bucketing operations.

North of Fort McMurray, the wildfire classified as MWF047 is burning at roughly 280 square kilometres in size and is still out of control. It has not moved closer to any communities or industrial sites. This wildfire was spotted on July 2 and was also caused by lightning.

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“We’re keeping an eye on the wildfires that are happening in the Fort McMurray forest area as well,” said Wildfire Information Officer Melissa Story at a Thursday media briefing. “Although most of the fires are 50-plus kilometers away from the the actual city of Fort McMurray, we do recognize that there is a lot of infrastructure in that area.”

That fire’s current borders are eight kilometres northeast of Suncor’s Firebag operation, 50 kilometres northeast of the Fort McKay First Nation and Metis Nation, and 70 kilometres northeast of Fort McMurray.

No evacuation warning has been issued for any community or industrial site. However, all non-essential staff have been removed from Suncor’s Firebag operation and Cenovus’ Sunrise site as a precaution.

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There are 241 people working on MWF047. This includes 134 firefighters and 26 incident management team members and support staff. The remaining staff are contractors and pilots. There are 18 helicopters and 16 pieces of heavy equipment being used to attack the wildfire and build fireguards.

Firefighters coming to Fort McMurray region from Ontario, New Brunswick

Firefighters are coming to the Fort McMurray region from other jurisdictions. This includes 100 firefighters and 43 overhead staff from Ontario, and 20 firefighters and six overhead staff from New Brunswick.

Alberta Forestry and Parks Minister Todd Loewen said the province met this year’s hiring goals for wildland firefighters, but most of them need relief. It has also been difficult moving heavy equipment to some wildfires because many of the wildfires are in remote muskeg.

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“When it comes to the weather conditions, any hot, dry weather–especially with wind–is going to affect the wildfire and how those wildfires spread,” said Loewen. “We’re seeing pretty intense activity as it stands right now on our on the wildfires that we have burning our landscape.”

Story said wildfires across Alberta have doubled in the last 48 hours because of heat waves and lightning storms. Since Canada Day, there have been 184 new wildfire starts and 99 were caused by lightning.

Alberta Wildfire has responded to 700 wildfires this year that have burned 2,000 square kilometres. To compare, this time last year 20,000 square kilometres had been burned by wildfires in Alberta.

Spring was cool and wet in most of Alberta this year, said Story, which kept below average the number of wildfires and their size. With temperatures rising, Story said Alberta is moving towards the five-year average for hectares burned. Upcoming rain forecasts will not be enough to put out the wildfires, but should slow their growth.

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vmcdermott@postmedia.com

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