Fort McMurray Wildfire

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FORT MCMURRAY WILDFIRE
On 1/5/2016, a wildfire started southwest (SW) of Fort McMurray in Canada. The
wildfire swept the neighboring communities, forcing more than 88,000 individuals to migrate to
other places. The wildfire destroyed around 2,400 buildings and homes (McDonald et al. 17).
Another 2,000 residents were forced to move to other places after their places of residence were
declared unsafe for staying because of contamination. The wildfire continued to spread across
other parts of northern Alberta as well as into Saskatchewan, impacting operations of Athabasca
oil sands and consuming forested areas, with approximated damage cost of about C$9.9 billion.
This Wildfire was one of the costliest disasters in the history of Canadian (Mamuji and Jack
175). The Fort McMurray Wildfire spread across approximately 1,500,000 acres before it
remained declared by the government to be under control. It continued to spread and was
eventually extinguished on 8/2/2017.
Root causes of Fort McMurray Wildfire
The wildfire was initially spotted by the forestry squad in a remote region 15 kilometers
away from Fort McMurray on 1/2016 and the crew reported the incidence to the administration
(Tan et al. 112). The first responders reached the scene 45 minutes later. The root cause of the
wildfire has not been found up to now, but it remained alleged to be caused by human Activity.
According to the provincial wildfire investigators, the Fort McMurray Wildfire was more likely
caused by human activity. When the fire began, the area was hot and dry. This temperature
favored the spread of fire in most parts of Canada. On 3/5/2016, the temperature increased to

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32.8 C, supplemented by the relative humidity of 12 percent. The condition intensified on
4/52016 when the temperature climbed to 31.9 C as well as winds gusted to 45 mph (Stirling 45).
A natural cycle of El Nino also contributed to a dry fall and a warm spring along with winter
season, leaving a paltry snowpack that melted quickly. This together with the high temperatures
created a favorable condition for the spread of wildlife.
Additionally, climate change was cited as the main contributor to the spread and start of
the fire (Pinno and Ruth 46) There is a constant debate in Canada as to whether it remained
insensitive to debate it during the disaster, or whether the disaster made it more essential to chat
about a relationship between human-initiated climate change as well as wildfires. Scientists and
politicians of Canada both notified that fire caused by the individual cannot particularly be
associated with climate change, but the support that it remains a contributing factor for the
spread of intense wildfire.
Impact of Fort McMurray Wildfire
According to the recent report of Statistics Canada illustrates the economic toll the
wildfire caused to the country. The report ranked the disaster one of the most expensive natural
disasters in the history of Canada with the insured losses of about $3.7 billion. As a result of this
Fort McMurray wildfire, more than 7 million hours of the job were lost. There was a drop in
Canada's exports of energy production by more than sixteen percent (Chow, Joyce and Lindsay
78). Over 12 oil sand operations in McMurray were closed over the past years. For instance,
Shell and Suncor industry were instantly closed after the outbreak of wildfire (Wilkinson et al.
65). Other organizations that took precautions by lowering the production include Husky,
Connacher, syncrude, as well as other Suncor mine sites. Based on all these facts, most
researchers argue that there was a loss of more than $ 985 million in the gross domestic product
(McGee, Bonita and Cordy 38). These great impacts from production mainly affected the

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province of Alberta because it took some time to reconstruct as well as resume its daily business
activities. This drop-in production also affected other countries such as the United State. Canada
is one of the countries in the world that has the largest oil reserves. It remains responsible for
about 40 percent oil import of the United States, which translates into around 3.5 million barrels
each day. In specific, Canada is the main supplier of oil to the United States and Tennessee,
Kentucky, and Oklahoma. The Fort McMurray fires affected the exportation of oil to these areas.
Impact on infrastructure: Initial estimates indicated that more than one thousand six
hundred structures in Canada were destroyed by wildfire. On 9/5/2016, the figure increased to
two thousand four hundred structures (Woolf et al.375). The explosions that occurred in the
Dickensfied and Thickwood damaged and destroyed many buildings. Also, the power grid of the
town sustained damage during the disaster. Fire condition Fort McMurray indeed destroyed
many facilities in the area.
Implications of Fort McMurray Wildfire
Most of the residents in Fort McMurray questioned whether provincial and local
authorities might have done a good job of controlling evacuation efforts. Evidence indicated that
services provided by the provincial and local authorities after and during the disaster have not
addressed the needs of the community. Also, Fort McMurray Wildfire raised the question of the
root cause of the disaster. Up to today, the official cause of Fort McMurray Wildfire has not been
determined. Some people linked the cause of wildfire to human-influenced activities other
people linked it to natural causes.
In conclusion, Fort McMurray wildfires indeed damaged the infrastructure of the people
of Alberta. More than 80000 individuals evacuated from the regions affected by the fire to other
places. More than 90,000 individuals were involved in the mass evacuation in the history of

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Canada. Currently, it remains difficult to find people in Alberta who have not been affected in
one way or the other by the disaster.

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Works Cited
Chow, Chung-Wai, Joyce Wu, and Lindsay Woo. "Prevalence of Lung Function Abnormalities
Following the Fort McMurray Wildfires." ISEE Conference Abstracts. Vol. 2018. No. 1.
2018.
Mamuji, Aaida A., and Jack L. Rozdilsky. "Wildfire as an increasingly common natural disaster
facing Canada: understanding the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire." Natural Hazards 98.1
(2019): 163-180.
McDonald, Caroline. "The Insurance impact of the Fort McMurray fire." Risk Management 63.7
(2016): 16-18.
Stirling, Michelle. "Fort McMurray wildfire 2016: Conflating human-caused wildfires with
human-caused global warming." Available at SSRN 2929576 (2017).
Tan, Xuezhi, Shu Chen, and Thian Yew Gan. "Multi-model extreme event attribution of the
weather conducive to the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire." Agricultural and forest
meteorology 260 (2018): 109-117.
Pinno, Bradley D., and Ruth C. Errington. "Maximizing natural trembling aspen seedling
establishment on a reclaimed boreal oil sands site." Ecological Restoration 33.1 (2015):
43-50.
McGee, Tara, Bonita McFarlane, and Cordy Tymstra. "Wildfire: a Canadian
perspective." Wildfire Hazards, Risks and Disasters. Elsevier, 2015. 35-58.
Woolf, Erica T. "Factors influencing community recovery decision making: A case study of the
2016 Fort McMurray wildfires." Journal of business continuity & emergency
planning 12.4 (2019): 368-380.