Canadian town, already staggering from oil bust, hit by wildfires

Mary Chia Holdings

04/05/2016 22:25

By Rod Nickel 
    EDMONTON, Alberta, May 4 (Reuters) - Fort McMurray, the 
Canadian oil town engulfed by wildfires, was already crippled by 
a collapse in crude prices before flames raced into the 
once-booming city, burning hundreds of homes to the ground and 
chasing residents into bush camps for safety. 
    Dubbed Fort McMoney when its oilsands industry was 
flourishing and residents were among the wealthiest in Canada, 
Fort McMurray had been hemorrhaging workers and wealth for 18 
months before fires forced the evacuation of the entire city's 
88,000 residents.  
    "Fort McMurray was really the ground zero of all that was 
happening related to oil and gas," said Sandeep Agrawal, urban 
studies and regional planning professor at the University of 
Alberta. "When this bust happened, it was catastrophic in many 
ways." 
    Surrounded by thick boreal forest and vast oil sands 
deposits, hundreds of kilometres from the nearest major city,  
Fort McMurray was deeply reliant on a single commodity. 
 urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N14005X 
    Its population ballooned to over 120,000 in 2015, sparking 
housing shortages and skyrocketing prices, before a 70 percent 
drop in oil prices last year slammed the door on growth, 
prompting the exodus of almost one-third of its inhabitants. 
    "Stores were closing, small businesses were closing. A year 
or two ago you could not get a seat in the restaurants, but the 
buying power was not there any more," said Ria Dickason, a South 
African immigrant who has lived in Fort McMurray for 14 years 
and fled the fires on Tuesday. 
    "Everyone was concerned about it, because it impacted every 
single person. It doesn't matter what type of work you do 
because lots and lots and lots of people lost their jobs." 
    Real estate websites are littered with listings for 
sprawling Fort McMurray homes with asking prices approaching C$1 
million - double Canada's average home price - in neighborhoods 
that are now charred and smoldering amid Alberta's largest-ever 
evacuation for a fire. 
    Wildfires had been threatening the remote city for days when 
flames nearly doubled in size, fueled by dry conditions blamed 
on global warming, forcing the evacuation of the entire city by 
Tuesday afternoon.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL2N1810N6 
    While oil sands facilities are not in the fire's path, at 
least four companies have curbed activities to allow workers and 
others to get to safety. It was unclear what percentage of 
production had been affected by the fire.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL2N1810N6     
    "While the full extent of the damage isn't yet known, we 
certainly do know that for those who have been affected this 
fire is absolutely devastating. It's a loss on a scale that is 
hard for many of us to imagine," Canadian Prime Minister Pierre 
Trudeau told a news conference in Ottawa. 
    As residents fled to oil sands workcamps to the north of the 
city, or south on the one clogged highway out of town, hundreds 
of dwellings furiously burned. 
    "I was panicking, to be honest with you, we could see the 
ash - a rain of ash, the cars were full of ashes," said Fatima 
Mian, a single mother of three who raced to pick up her children 
from school before fleeing the city on Tuesday. She found refuge 
in an oil workers' camp about an hour from the city. 
    A realtor who has been trying to sell homes left vacant by 
the exodus, Mian said she knows the city is vilified by 
environmentalists who blame the development of the oil sands for 
increasing greenhouse gases and climate change. 
    "Fort McMurray has a big stigma attached to it, but it's a 
work town, people come here to work and make money. We 
understand global warming and stuff but ... people do long 
shifts here to raise a family and support a family," said Mian. 
 
 (Additional reporting by Andrea Hopkins in Toronto and Nia 
Williams in Calgary, Writing by Andrea Hopkins; Editing by Alan 
Crosby) 
 ((Andrea.Hopkins@thomsonreuters.com; 416 941 8159; Reuters 
Messaging: andrea.hopkins.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net)) 
 
Keywords: CANADA WILDFIRE/TOWN