FORT MCMURRAY WILDFIRE OFFICIALS REACTED TOO SLOW

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FORT MCMURRAY WILDFIRE:

OFFICIALS REACTED TOO SLOWLY

Mike Priaro, P.Eng.

First uploaded May 6, 2016. Last updated May 14, 2016.

Cover photo: Wildfire devastation in Fort McMurray. Source; Chad Kruger/CTV News

Early version published as a Letter-to-Editor:
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/opinion/letters/your+letters+thursday/11898335/story.html
http://calgaryherald.com/opinion/letters/your-letters-for-thursday-may-5

Forest fire fighters arrived too late at scene of wildfire and lacked resources to control it.

Fort McMurray offcials were too slow to react to out-of-control wildfire on outskirts of city.

Crews on patrol discovered a two-hectare (five-acre) forest fire just west of Fort McMurray on Sunday afternoon, May 1st. They immediately jumped on the fire, but only four water bombers were dispatched within the next two hours, and by 6 pm Sunday the fire was a 60 hectare (150-acre) out-of-control wildfire.

Officials of the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, which administers the city of Fort McMurray, then effectively ignored the driest spring in more than twenty years, south-west winds, temperatures approaching 30 C, an astonishingly low relative humidity of 15 percent, and an out-of-control wildfire fire on the outskirts of the city.

The spread of the wildfire into the city apparently caught those officials off-guard and an emergency evacuation of 88,000 people was not ordered until Tuesday afternoon on May 3rd – 44 hours after the fire was declared out-of-control.

Below is the timeline illustrating a critical gap of 35 hours, one and a half days, where no evacuation orders were issued - instead, two were lifted - before widespread mandatory evacuation orders were issued: http://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/fort-mcmurray-wildfire-a-small-fire-turns-into-the-beast

3 a.m. Monday May 2nd:

A mandatory evacuation order for the community of Gregoire is lifted to a “shelter in place” order.

5:30 p.m. Monday May 2nd:

A mandatory evacuation order for the community of Prairie Creek is lifted to a “shelter in place” order. Firefighters and heavy equipment hold the fire 1.2 km west of Highway 63. The blaze grows to 1,250 hectares by the end of the day.

11 a.m. Tuesday, May 3rd:

Although firefighters on the east edge of the fire hold the line, the blaze grows substantially to the west and is 2,656 hectares.

Noon Tuesday, May 3rd:

Fort McMurray Fire Chief Darby Allen says the fire has crossed the Athabasca River toward the northwest part of town.

2 p.m. Tuesday, May 3rd;

People living in Abasand, Grayling Terrace and Beacon Hill receive mandatory evacuation notices. Residents living south of Thickwood Boulevard between Real Martin Drive and Thicket Drive in the Ross Haven neighbourhood, west of the Athabasca River, are told to be ready to leave with 30 minutes notice.

The result of the insufficient warnings and 35-hour lag in issuing mandatory evacuation orders was that thousands of unprepared, terrified residents had to run a gauntlet of stories-high flames, cascades of burning embers, heavy smoke, stalled vehicles, and traffic jams to escape in panic and in fear of their lives with little more than the clothes on their backs and a few precious mementos. Many of the evacuees didn't have, or couldn't find, enough gasoline to get far and tankers had to be dispatched from Edmonton to fuel vehicles abandoned on Hwy. 63 - the only main road out of Fort McMurray.

It was just sheer luck, or a miracle, that there wasn't large loss of life. Only two deaths of fleeing residents were reported as a result of a vehicle collision in heavy smoke.

Fred McDougall, a former Deputy Minister, Lands and Forests under both the Lougheed and Getty governments and a former forestry industry executive, blames former Premier Ralph Klein for cuts to the Alberta Forestry Service, now Alberta Agriculture - Forestry Division. While I do not doubt the funding issues, there will always be some forest fires that get out-of-control, some of the time, no matter how many resources are available.

When forestry officials failed to contain the forest fire - partly due to extreme weather conditions, partly due to not ariving soon enough, partly due to lack of manpower and fire fighting resources - it became the responsibility of municipal officials to protect the public.

Fort McMurray Fire Chief Darby Allen is quoted in the Globe and Mail as saying "I truly believe nothing else could have been done to protect the people...” http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/alberta/about-85-per-cent-of-fort-mcmurray-still-intact-2400-structures-lost/article29945682/

The evidence suggests otherwise. By not monitoring the situation sufficiently, municipal officials failed to provide adequate warning and an evacuation notice in the timely manner that was warranted by the potential danger of the situation.

Here's just one example that they failed to do so as reported by the CBC: See http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/close-brush-with-flames-fort-mcmurray-school-staff-drive-students-through-wildfire-1.3573497

"An elementary school principal from fire-ravaged Fort McMurray is crediting her staff for ferrying 70 students to safety through the heart of the blaze.

Laura Dennis says the swift growth of the fire Tuesday afternoon left her with little choice but to get the children out of Good Shepherd Catholic School before official evacuation procedures could get underway.

She mobilized her staff, instructing them to take as many students as they could in their own vehicles and head toward another school that wasn't in the direct line of fire.

Dennis says the convoy drove metres from walls of flame that were destroying the neighbourhood of Beacon Hill, leaving her terrified for everyone's safety.

"It was so scary driving along Beacon Hill with all these little kids in cars, and the flames were so close," Dennis said, audibly fighting back tears at the memory."

The slow response in the face of looming, potential disaster is mind-boggling as will be the economic aftershock of this wildfire.

A public inquiry/panel/commission is an absolute necessity to get the facts and timelines and to make recommendations designed to ensure nothing like this ever happens again..

Its first recommendation ought to be a suggested half-mile wide fire break around every community, major natural resource facility, and airport in the boreal forest.

A half-mile (800 metre) wide fire break around a community like Fort McMurray greatly reduces the ability of a wildfire jumping into the community because there is no tinder-dry forest to jump to and there would be fire fighters waiting to put out small fires started by embers. In fact, the Athabasca River, which the wildfire jumped, is only 400 meters wide at the bridge in Fort McMurray. The wildfire jumped the Athabasca, and other rivers, because it could jump from tinder-dry forest to tinder-dry forest.

Its recommendations must be enacted with legislation and incorporated into Alberta’s Fire Code. Insurance companies, and all who pay their premiums, will support such measures.

And for those who will complain about the tiny loss of boreal forest for fire breaks, and fear climate change in general, “A quarter to half of Earth’s vegetated lands has shown significant greening over the last 35 years largely due to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide”, according to a new study by an international team of 32 authors from 24 institutions in eight countries published in the leading peer-reviewed science journal Nature Climate Change on April 25, 2016. See: http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2436/