FORT MCMURRAY, CANADA — More than 80,000 people needed to be evacuated from the city of Fort McMurray in Canada’s Northern Alberta. The mandatory evacuation covered all of Fort McMurray and is the largest evacuation on record in Canada.
The fire has already destroyed over 1,600 buildings, including a new school. Resident Neil Scott told the BBC: “It was something you’d see in a movie probably. I was stuck between a concrete barrier and the fire and I thought ‘You know what? I might not make it out.’ There’s whole neighbourhoods that are gone. A hotel burned down, a gas station exploded. One lady that I met she actually was sheltered behind like an electrical box when it actually exploded and she felt a shockwave.”
Fort McMurray Wildfire by NASA