The devastation in Fort McMurray is beyond comprehension.
It really hit home after reading a report of one evacuee getting an eerie message on her phone. She has an app that connects to her home’s smoke alarm, and the app was indicating that the alarm was sounding, warning everyone to get out of the house.
Another report told of how the massive fire was creating its own weather patterns, including lightning in the smoke clouds.
And the heartbreaking tragedy of a 15-year-old girl who died after fleeing the fire in an SUV that collided with a tractor-trailer and burst into flames.
It was straight out of a movie. Traffic jams full of desperate families trying to flee the city as 100-foot flames burned trees right outside their car windows. The day suddenly turned to night on some stretches of highway where black smoke seared the air. It was a living horror show, where motorists ignored the lights and sirens of fire trucks and police cars headed in the opposite direction. It was everyone for himself.
“My world is burning,” one pupil said after arriving at an Edmonton school that was taking displaced children from Fort McMurray.
One photograph showed a lone police officer walking down the middle of a residential street that looked like a bombed out neighbourhood in the Second World War.
Now for the good news.
The outpouring of support for the 90,000 evacuees has been amazing, almost too overwhelming for emergency workers to handle. And the Canadian government has promised to match every Fort McMurray donation made to the Red Cross.
Visit www.redcross.ca to donate what you can.
To think that what happened in Fort McMurray could happen here is very frightening. It almost happened in Oliver last year.
Our planet is getting hotter. Spring and summer temperatures are rising and global warming continues to dry out our earth.
Experts say we can expect more interface fires like this, which is a scary thought.
Let’s hope Oliver’s new wildfire protection plan goes a long way to prevent another Fort McMurray. Residents must do what they can to reduce the fire hazards on their property, because once one structure goes up in flames, it tends to advance to the next one.
