Fort McMurray Wildfire Finally Extinguished After 458 Days

Source: edmontonjournal.com

After 458 days, the Horse River fire that destroyed thousands of homes and scattered tens of thousands of people across Canada is finally dead. 

The fire — first spotted on May 1, 2016, before entering Fort McMurray two days later — was declared extinguished on Aug. 2, said Lynn Daina of Alberta Agriculture and Forestry.

At its height, the May 2016 wildfire burned an area of 589,552hectares, or 5,895 square-kilometres. 

Even after the fire was declared under control on July 4, 2016, embers burned throughout the area during the fall. As the days grew colder, it burned underground and remained there throughout winter.

When a fire burns as long and as intensely as the Horse River fire, it is not unusual for a fire to smoulder underground during the winter, feeding off peat and dead vegetation, before returning to the surface in the spring.

As spring approached, forestry workers began scanning the area for hot spots before they had a chance to burn again. The fire remained underground throughout the summer, Dania said, and did not flare up into a wildfire this year.

“The firefighters would dig down into an ash pit and extinguish where the heat was coming from,” she said. “They were scanning the area for heat from helicopters and keeping an eye on the area.”

Since the 2017 fire season started on March 1, Daina says Alberta Forestry has fought 88 wildfires within the Wood Buffalo region. Collectively, they have burned 1,323 hectares.

The May 2016 wildfire destroyed 1,595 buildings, which includes 2,579 living spaces and 22 commercial spaces. According to the Insurance Bureau of Canada, it is the costliest disaster in Canadian history.

It was also the biggest fire in Wood Buffalo since 2011, when the Richardson Fire burned an area of 705,075 hectares. That fire burned from mid-May until September.