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OT: The News Thread

Habspatrol said:
It's incredible how dry it's been in northern SK and AB. We're like a few hundred KMs from Fort McMurray as the crow flies and I wouldn't be surprised if we see the same stuff happening here.

Wishing you guys the best of luck up there.
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Thanks man. I'm about 65km north of McMurray and we have an airstrip that supports 737's so we should be good. I was scheduled to fly out tomorrow night anyway. When this is done, a big chunk of a 100K+ city is going to be gone. The fire has jumped the river so it's on both sides of the city now. Full evac of the entire town basically. Nuts.

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Habspatrol said:
Mother. Of. God. I just checked out #ymmfire... unreal.

Have you evacuated Mindz?
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I'm a fair bit north. Air quality is shit, but no fire. Our emergency response protocols wouldn't kick in until the fire was 10-20km closer and if it was threatening to cut our site off from highway 63 (we're on the end of a 25km access highway off of 63, 60km north of McMurray)
 
CH1 said:
Safe travels, amigo.
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Cheers. Not worried about myself at the moment.

....and they're evacuating the ****ing hospital.....highway 63 north is a parking lot. The one thing I will say is that this region is uniquely capable of handling an influx of fire refugees. A lot of non essential work is going to be shut down at the major sites, and a lot of camp beds cleared out to accommodate familes. There's about 35,000 camp rooms in the region and with the slow down, a lot of them were empty.
 
I have quite a few buddies in this....I'm quite worried for them. Traffic leaving down is a nightmare, basically out of a disaster movie.
 
lecoqsportif said:
Hey man, I hope everyone gets out of this mess unhurt. Keep well.
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Currently no injuries, no fatalities. Just slow evacuating the city. One highway goes north and south through town and it's the only way in or out and a gas station caught fire and exploded on the south end of town at about 2pm local, so they've closed the southbound access.
 
CTheBigPicture said:
Man crazy.

Getting stuck in traffic though is OK, people will get over it. As long as they are safe. Have they contained the fire ?
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The fire is jumping the highway in places and the outside temperature on the highway in town is about 46-47 degrees right now.

and no, the fire is considered by alberta wildlife to be "out of control" and it's unsafe for waterbombers or helicopters to drop retardant directly on the fire so it's just burning. Winds kicked up late this afternoon too, pretty steady 15-30km winds pushing the fire from the south through town. They're mobilizing equipment from some of the sites to help with clearing at risk brush/forest to try to divert the fire west.

When all is said and done, the town is toast imo. There's no rain in the forecast, warm, dry and windy for the next week.
 
MindzEye said:
The fire is jumping the highway in places and the outside temperature on the highway in town is about 46-47 degrees right now.

and no, the fire is considered by alberta wildlife to be "out of control" and it's unsafe for waterbombers or helicopters to drop retardant directly on the fire so it's just burning. Winds kicked up late this afternoon too, pretty steady 15-30km winds pushing the fire from the south through town. They're mobilizing equipment from some of the sites to help with clearing at risk brush/forest to try to divert the fire west.

When all is said and done, the town is toast imo. There's no rain in the forecast, warm, dry and windy for the next week.
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Be safe man. Hoping for the best.
 
Just saw ALL of the city has been ordered to evacuate, that includes you ME?

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Leafovic said:
Well they surely have to start getting help from other cities? can't the federal govt help with their resources?
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Provincial assets are rolling as we speak, the federal government hasn't gotten involved yet but I believe the Province has to request Federal assistance (military, etc)
 
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