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Fire bans began in Alberta on February 20. [13] Beginning in mid-May, wildfires began to encroach on Fort McMurray, which had been devastated by fire in 2016. [14] [15] On the evening of May 10, the wildfire designated MWF017 was 16 km southeast of Fort McMurray and the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo had issued an evacuation alert. [16]
The fire continued to spread across northern Alberta and into Saskatchewan, [15] consuming forested areas and impacting Athabasca oil sands operations. With an estimated damage cost of C$ 9.9 billion (US$7.61 billion), it was the costliest disaster in Canadian history .
The 2019 Alberta wildfires have been described by NASA as part of an extreme fire season in the province. [5] In 2019 there were a total of 803,393.32 hectares (1,985,228 acres), [ 1 ] [ 6 ] [ 7 ] [ 8 ] which is over 3.5 times more land area burned than in the five-year average burned. [ 9 ]
The fires merged and swept through the town, destroying 358 of its 1,113 structures. The evacuation order lasted until August 17, but fires to the south continued to burn out of control. On September 7 Parks Canada announced that the wildfire was under control with the fire estimated to be 32,722 hectares (80,860 acres) in size.
The fire burned around 23,015 hectares (56,871 acres) and between 30 and 40 structures were destroyed. [88] [89] The response to the fire included widespread evacuation orders of the surrounding area, displacing around 5000 people. [90] This wildfire was the largest recorded in the history of Nova Scotia. [84] [91]
In 2016, the Fort McMurray wildfire resulted in the largest fire evacuation of residents in Alberta's history, as more than 80,000 people were ordered to evacuate. [55] [56] Like the rest of the world, Alberta was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic starting in 2020. The last restrictions were lifted in 2022. [57]
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The province of Alberta had 306 wildfires early in the season, which was 100 wildfires above historic averages and was the first indicator of an early and above normal forest fire season. [19] Higher than normal winter and early spring temperatures in Alberta, as well as low precipitation averages across all the Western Canadian provinces was ...