Slave Lake, Alberta Devastated by Wildfire

[Phantasee]

Hundreds of homes destroyed by flames: mayor
Updated: Mon May. 16 2011 16:28:43

ctvedmonton.ca

Hundreds of homes in the Slave Lake area have been destroyed by flames, the town's mayor reports. At last word, the out-of-control wildfires have wiped out about 40 per cent of the town.

Around 8 p.m. Sunday, Slave Lake's town hall caught fire, followed by the library, and the main mall. By Monday, CTV News has learned the town has no power or water. But all area banks and schools are intact.

The town's hospital was evacuated Sunday, and 29 patients had to be moved to hospitals in neighbouring Westlock, Boyle and Athabasca. One patient was flown to Edmonton. The hospital has been damaged by flames, but officials believe it can be repaired.

"There are electricity lines down, there's water breaks, there's gas lines possibly cracked. There are hotspots," said Sgt. Tim Taniguchi with the RCMP "K" division.

A state of emergency was declared and residents were told late Sunday to evacuate town or face being arrested. All residents, with the exception of rescue crews, fled town.

Officials with Sustainable Resource Development confirm the blazes are still out of control. Rob Harris says the situation remains volatile, and he believes crews still have "a long way to go."

Crews are still trying to save homes.

Firefighters from Edmonton headed to the site Sunday evening, to help fire crews try to bring the blazes under control.

It's expected that more firefighters from B.C. and Ontario will arrive at the site by Tuesday. Crews remain concerned about forecasts calling for continued high winds in the area.

Hundreds of residents fear they may not have a home to return to.

"Our house is out of town, I don't know if it's gone yet or not," said Myrna Franklin.

The town's mayor says the community is in no position to welcome residents back in.

"Their safety is paramount. And our community is not in a situation to have them back in our community," said Mayor Karina Pillay-Kinnee.

The premier arrived in Slave Lake later Monday afternoon to see the situation first-hand.

"This is probably the worst curve ball nature has thrown at us," said Premier Ed Stelmach. "You have winds at 100 kilometres. You have four foot waves in the lake. They had to shut down the water bombers…these were calls made by professionals."

* Family members looking for information on where medical patients were moved can call Alberta Health Services at 1-866-301-2668.
* For anyone looking for information about friends and family evacuated from Slave Lake call 1-800-565-4483 for assistance.
* The Alberta arm of the Red Cross is accepting donations for displaced residents. You can donate by calling 1-800-418-1111.

With files from CTV's Sean Amato

No reports of injuries so far, thank God. Last night they were predicting that the whole town would be burnt down by morning, fortunately this is not quite the case. However, 40% of the town is gone. The link has some photos showing some of the damage.

We've had very windy conditions for the past week or so, and Slave Lake had gusts of up to 100 km/h yesterday.

CTV report giving an idea of the scale of the fire:


The story wasn't really picked up by the news stations until very late last night, most people learned of it through Facebook and Twitter.

[Broomstick]

There is a bit about this on the venting thread, I don't know if it would be appropriate to take those out and merge them here, or if a mod would be willing to do that, but to my mind they'd fit better here.

[Phantasee]

From Venting:

Slave Lake, Alberta is on fire. The best information currently is through Facebook and twitter (Slave Lake is the trending topic, #SlaveLakefire is the common hashtag).

It's a town of 7000 people, and the entire place is expected to be ashes by morning. I was there last August for most of a day. Kind, helpful people who got me out of some trouble while I was there.

This is incredibly upsetting.

Yeah the people have been evacuated. People who didn't leave when their door was knocked got arrested, so they made sure everyone got out. Lots of people coming in to Edmonton, Athabasca, and surrounding communities with nothing but the clothes on their back.

I might go up this weekend to help out, if they need volunteers.

They actually arrest the holdouts?

News stories say the RCMP is "assisting" the remaining residents in evacuating. 95% of the population is out. Twitter and Facebook tell me that the method is to arrest them. I doubt they're cuffing grandpa and forcing him in the back of a paddy wagon.

I never really understood that mentality. If my entire town was on fire, I'd get the fuck out of Dodge.

I imagine it's people who don't understand the scale of the disaster, or just can't comprehend it. And then there's people who have spent their whole lives in their home, it's everything they've worked for. Shit's traumatic, I can understand if people's judgment is impaired in those circumstances. Forcing them to evacuate saves their lives, and they will probably be grateful for it in a couple days when the dots finally connect and they realize they might have lost everything else, but they still have their lives.

[Raj Ahten]

And I thought Texas had it bad last month with several million acres burned. In their case it mostly hit West Texas, which has hardly anyone in it. Wind driven fire events like this one in Canada are nasty as is there is very little fire fighters can do to fight it in such extreme conditions.

[Phantasee]

Last I heard a total of 11,000 people have been evacuated from the Lesser Slave Lake region.

[General Trelane (Retired)]

The morning news on Global reported there are some 15 wildfires burning out of control in that region. Fortunately the winds are dying down, but they really need some serious rain.

[Phantasee]

The fire southwest of Slave Lake is 15000 hectares big.

My father might have to evacuate from up near Fort MacKay. They aren't at the same location I was last time I went up, they're on the other side of Kearl Lake, and apparently the area around Firebag might have to evacuate. Another report says the Fort MacKay First Nation is evacuating people with asthma and such due to the smoke, so that might be why the Firebag area could be evacuated.