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A wildfire has invaded Fort McMurray in Alberta, Canada, forcing the entire city to be evacuated Tuesday as the large blaze engulfed homes and businesses. Some 88,000 people were forced to leave Tuesday evening as the fire quickly spread, putting homes, schools, businesses and lives in danger, according to the Globe and Mail. Local officials said Wednesday morning that 80 percent of the homes in Beacon Hill have been lost, and the most recent census said the neighborhood is home to 2,200 residents living in more than 700 dwellings. At a Wednesday morning briefing, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley said the...

It took the market over a day to appreciate the fallout from the devastating Canadian wildfire which has led to a state of emergency in Alberta, the evacuation of over 80,000 people in the oil sands gateway city of Fort McMurray, and the destruction of over 1,600 structures. According to insurance industry reports, losses from the fire are approaching $1 billion, and will likely set records for the country. The average cost of a single-family home in the community was recently around CAD$627,000 ($487,000), Aon said, citing data from the local real estate industry, and cited by CNBC. That would...

Supercharged by winds of up to 70 km/h, the Fort McMurray wildfire ballooned to 85,000 hectares overnight and is now raging across a wide front south of the city. Alberta Premier Rachel Notley and wildfire officials say the fire is expected to continue to burn out of control today as more than 100 firefighters, 10 helicopters and 16 air tankers work to protect homes and critical infrastructure. One major task on Thursday will be to move up to 25,000 people now sheltering in oilsands work camps north of the city. The province hopes to transport many of those people, who...

A huge wildfire in Fort McMurray, Alta., destroyed an entire neighbourhood and burned homes and businesses in several others Tuesday, and continues to rage out of control. By late afternoon, the entire city of 60,000 had been ordered evacuated. Residents by the thousands fled the fire and for hours caused gridlock on Highway 63, even overwhelming oilsands work camps, where beds and meals were offered. Police were patrolling the highway with cans of gas, after fuel supplies ran out in Fort McMurray, Wandering River and Grasslands.

On Monday, March 21, 2011 the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Drumheller, Alberta received word that the remains of either a plesiosaur or an ichthyosaur had been discovered in the Milllennium Mine operated by the petroleum company Suncor Inc. This mine is located about 30 km north of the town of Fort McMurray (population ~50,000) in northeastern Alberta (about 800km north of Drumheller), and is one of the places where bitumen rich sand is mined and refined into various petroleum products. On Wednesday, March 23, 2011 myself and technician Darren Tanke flew up to Fort McMurray expecting to see...

FORT MCMURRAY, Alta. — Neil Young can keep on talking in the free world, but Fort McMurray won’t be listening. A local rock radio station stopped playing the Canuck singer’s music for a day after he compared the northern Alberta oilsands city to Hiroshima after the atomic bomb. On-air personality Chris Byrne at Rock 97.9 then asked his listeners if the ban should be extended indefinitely. Neil supporters were in the majority, but when station staff looked at their email addresses, most came from out of town. So with local opinion firmly against him, Young has been pulled from the...

The Oil Sands Of Alberta Jan. 22, 2005 (CBS) (CBS) There’s an oil boom going on right now. Not in Saudi Arabia or Kuwait or any of those places, but 600 miles north of Montana. In Alberta, Canada, in a town called Fort McMurray where, this time of year, the temperature sometimes zooms up to zero. The oilmen up there aren’t digging holes in the sand and hoping for a spout. They’re digging up dirt — dirt that is saturated with oil. They’re called oil sands, and if you’ve never heard of them then you’re in for a big surprise...