A blast of hot, dry weather across Alberta in recent days kicked up a series of new blazes across the province’s remote northern reaches
A blast of hot, dry weather across Alberta in recent days kicked up a series of new blazes across the province’s remote northern reaches, with almost a dozen surrounding the roughly 70,000-person city of Fort McMurray.
Fort McMurray, the largest population center near Canada’s massive oilsands operations, was devastated by a blaze in 2016 that forced thousands to evacuate and temporarily shut more than 1 million barrels of daily oil output. The city was partially evacuated in May because of an approaching wildfire.
Even after the recent flareup, Alberta is having a far milder wildfire season than last year’s record-breaking onslaught. The province has seen 690 fires this year, compared with 840 at this point in 2023. The difference in area burned is even wider, with about 183,000 hectares affected so far in 2024, less than a 10th of the total by this point last year. Temperatures are forecast to cool slightly in northern Alberta Thursday after exceeding 30 degrees Celsius on Wednesday.
So far this year, about 16,000 hectares have burned in Quebec’s southern zone, where most of the population resides, compared with more than 1 million hectares in that area burned by this point last year, according to provincial data.
In Alberta, wildfires also are posing a threat to gas output. Natural gas sites that produce the equivalent of about 30,000 barrels a day of oil have out-of-control fires within 10 kilometres, according to Alberta Energy Regulator production data. In addition to Suncor, companies with the most production near out-of-control blazes include Spartan Delta Corp., TAQA North Ltd., Westbrick Energy Ltd. and Sunshine Oilsands Ltd. None of these companies immediately responded to requests for comment.
With assistance from Mark Mann.