Canada Fort McMurray: Alberta leader inspects fire devastation

Steve Roberts, executive director of Saskatchewan wildfire management, said the fire that devastated Fort McMurray was 30 kilometres away and another large fire was 15 kilometres from crossing into the province on Monday.

But while the city is now considered safe from the blaze, Alberta Premiere Rachel Notley said it is still not safe for residents to return because many homes have no water or electrical power. "For those in and around Fort McMurray though, there is an economic outcome to taking production off line", Notley said.

"Some facilities have done it, it's that quick; some facilities are turning back up the volumes now", said Williams.

Numerous drilling projects south of the community, however, will not start up so seamlessly.

"First responders and fix crews have weeks of work ahead of them to make this city safe for the people of Fort McMurray and the surrounding communities, but it is going to be made safe".

About 2,400 homes and buildings were destroyed but officials said firefighters saved 25,000 others in the city, including the hospital, municipal buildings and every functioning school.

"It's not yet safe to return", she said late Monday.

During a tour Monday with journalists, Fort McMurray's mayor and city planners, Notley said while the damage is significant, almost 90 percent of the city's structures are intact. The bulk of the city's evacuees moved south after Tuesday's mandatory evacuation order, but 25,000 evacuees moved north and were housed in camps normally used for oil sands workers until they also could be evacuated south.

The government knows that "the oil sector will continue to be a very important part of the Canadian economy", said the minister. "But I will also say that I was struck by the proximity of that devastation to neighborhoods that were untouched".

A torched pickup truck rests alongside incinerated properties in fire-damaged Fort McMurray, Alberta.

"You got people here getting stressed out".

Leftakis and several friends who evacuated together are staying at a lodge near the evacuation center in Lac La Biche.

Sites in the Fort McMurray region have been secured and have no danger to the current wildfire.

"This disaster is surreal", he said. Its workers largely live in Fort McMurray, a former frontier outpost-turned-city whose residents mostly come from elsewhere in Canada. Fire specialists look at weather, fire behaviour and the fuel in front of fires to make projections about where the fire could go in a "worst-case scenario".

When he later saw video from the neighborhood he last saw burning, he was not surprised by the result.

"We have not seen any of that behaviour", he said.