FORT MCMURRAY, Alberta — Displaced residents at oil field camps got a drive-by view of their burned-out city Friday in a convoy that moved evacuees south amid a massive wildfire that officials fear could double in size by the end of Saturday.
As police and the military oversaw the procession of hundreds of vehicles, a mass airlift of evacuees also resumed. A day after 8,000 people were flown out, authorities said 5,500 more were expected to be evacuated by the end of Friday and an additional 4,000 would be flown out Saturday.
More than 80,000 people have left Fort McMurray, in the heart of Canada’s oil sands, where the fire has torched 1,600 homes and other buildings. The mass evacuation forced as much as a quarter of Canada’s oil output offline according to estimates and is expected to impact a country hurt by a dramatic fall in the price of oil.
About 1,200 vehicles had passed through Fort McMurray by late Friday afternoon despite a one-hour interruption because of heavy smoke, authorities said.
Jim Dunstan was in the convoy with his wife, Tracy, and two young sons. “It was shocking to see the damaged cars all burned on the side of the road. It made you feel lucky to get out of there,” he said.
In Edmonton, 4,500 to 5,000 evacuees arrived at the airport on at least 45 flights Friday, airport spokesman Chris Chodan said. In total, more than 300 flights have arrived with evacuees since Tuesday, he said.
A group that arrived late Friday afternoon was greeted by volunteers who handed out bottled water and helped direct people where to go next.
Among them was 32-year-old Chad Robertson, a fuel truck driver who was evacuated from Husky Energy’s Sunrise project, northeast of Fort McMurray. He said that when the fire started, even though the flames were relatively far away, “everyone started panicking.”
Robertson said he had plans to go to a friend’s house in Edmonton before heading home to Nova Scotia.
Scott Burrell, 42, from Kelowna, British Columbia, was waiting with others in an airport terminal that had been repurposed for evacuees who were resting and waiting for flights. He said he was working for a scaffolding company at a plant called Fort Hills when the fire broke out Tuesday.
“We were working overtime, and I just saw what looked like a massive cloud in the sky, but I knew it was fire,” he said. “The very next day was my day to go home. Ends up we weren’t going home that day.”
Burrell and others were evacuated by plane Friday, after spending three days with families who arrived at the work camp because they were evacuated from their towns. He said he and other workers rationed their food to help the families who were coming in, and some offered up their living spaces for them.
Burrell planned to catch a flight back to British Columbia.
Alberta’s provincial government said Friday the size of the blaze had grown to nearly 250,000 acres. No deaths or injuries were reported.
The government said 1,100 firefighters, 110 helicopters, 295 pieces of heavy equipment and more than 27 air tankers were fighting the fire. But Chad Morrison, Alberta’s manager of wildfire prevention, said “there is a high potential that the fire could double in size by the end of tomorrow.”
Morrison said no amount of resources would put this fire out. They need rain.
“We have not seen rain in this area for the last two months of significance,” Morrison said. “This fire will continue to burn for a very long time until we see some significant rain.”
Environment Canada forecast a 40 percent chance of showers in the area Sunday.
Morrison said he expected the fire to expand into a forested area northeast and away from Fort McMurray but said extremely dry conditions and a hot temperature of 81 Fahrenheit was expected Saturday along with strong winds.
