Before the fire, the Howcrofts weren't sure they wanted to have another baby. Then, suddenly, their world shifted.

Kimberley Howcroft is the founder of a Facebook group called Fire Babies 2017, representing some of the hundreds of women in Fort McMurray who became pregnant in the days, weeks and months after last May's devastating wildfires.

One fire baby was delivered on Tuesday, at least two were born last weekend and there was one the previous Friday night. There were two more on Feb. 15, one on Valentine's Day, two on Feb. 13 and on Feb. 12 and three on Feb. 11.

There are so many that Elaine Frances Wilson-MacDougall, a kindhearted woman who knits matching blankets and hats as gifts for fire babies, is having trouble keeping up. There are so many that the maternity staff at the Northern Lights Regional Health Centre will soon be deluged with infants conceived in the wake of the biggest natural disaster in Canadian history.

"These are special babies," said Ms. Howcroft, who will have her second child on March 11.

"When the fire occurred, we experienced a massive, life-changing event."

A few years ago, Fort McMurray's birth rate was so high that schools and other city services were stretched to keep up. In July, 2012, 147 babies were born in a single month.

The downturn in the economy has caused jobs to be lost in the oil patch, and some of those workers have taken their young families with them to find employment elsewhere. The birth rate last year fell to an average of 81 a month, but those numbers were skewed by the fire and evacuation.

There were 94 babies born at the Northern Lights Regional Health Centre in January, and a significant increase appears imminent. A study released by Alberta Health Services in March of 2015 shows that Fort McMurray's birth rate was still well above the provincial average, as was the percentage of the population between the ages of 1 and 34.

It will be months before a fire-baby boom can be validated, but everything points to one. There are 134 members in Ms. Howcroft's Facebook group, and that's certainly just a portion of the city's pregnant population.

There are concerns that a baby boom could affect local health-care workers, who are already under stress. In a municipality of 80,000 people, there are only three pediatricians and three doctors practising obstetrics and gynecology. One pediatrician closed his office last week after a protracted disagreement with Alberta Health Services.

Meanwhile, it seems like everyone in Fort McMurray either has a family member or friend that is pregnant.

Since Feb. 1, Ms. Wilson MacDougall has received 53 requests for blankets from mothers expecting fire babies.

"I started out to make a few blankets that I was going to take to the hospital, and then I found out that all these women were pregnant," she said. "I never expected it, but it was definitely a project I wanted to take on. I feel each and every one of these women deserve it. I hope it is something that they will put in their memory box and cherish."

A time of stress and fear

Ms. Howcroft and her Facebook friends have heard the teasing.

"A lot of people laugh when they find out I got pregnant during the evacuation," Ms. Howcroft said. "They joke and say, 'Oh, you must have had a little too much time on your hands.'"

Instead, she said, it was just the opposite.

The Howcrofts met in London, Ont., when Kimberley was a bank teller and Spencer stopped by the branch to make the final payment on an expensive vacuum. They talked for almost 20 minutes as he stood at her wicket, and she remembers feeling like they were the only two people in the room.

They went to the movies on their first date. Spencer, being shy, didn't hold her hand even when she inched hers closer. They went to a pub afterward, and the next day he brought her to meet his parents. They have been together ever since.

Last May 3, she remembers putting their little boy, Benson, down for a nap in their home in Fort McMurray.

"The sky and the whole inside of our house turned orange," she said. "It looked like hell. I was upset and called Spencer at work and told him things didn't feel right. "

Within an hour, he was sent home from his job driving a truck in the oil sands, and the Howcrofts found themselves fleeing a city in flames. They were stuck in traffic on Highway 63, south of the city, when a helicopter swooped down beside them.

"It was so close I could see the pilot's eyes," Ms. Howcroft said. "I started to cry. We were heading in the opposite direction, and he was flying off into smoke. I couldn't believe how brave he was."

It took them 14 hours to reach a friend's house in Boyle, Alta., less than 300 kilometres away. They stayed there briefly, then were taken in by family in Ontario. Eventually, he was called back to work in Alberta, and she remained behind. When he left, it was gut-wrenching. She felt anxious being apart. He was gone for a month.

When he returned for a visit in June, they conceived their second child.

"My husband and I went through the scariest day of our lives together and we were shaken to the core. When you have moments where you think you might not live, it changes your outlook and changes you as a couple.

"After experiencing that, growing our family was the natural thing to do."

Bryana Beadman and her spouse, Chris Anderson, had identical twin boys three weeks early on Dec. 28.

Charlie and James were conceived the week after the evacuation, when she and Mr. Anderson were staying in Edmonton at his brother's house.

"It was a stressful time," she said. "One night we had a couple of drinks – and you know what happened. I thought it was crazy, and then I started finding all of these other women were pregnant."

'A godsend to our family'

Now, the new mothers are facing another kind of stress: Who will care for their babies?

Even though Fort McMurray is generally perceived as a place that attracts transients, it is mostly a community of young families. As the population has grown, so has the need for health care. Alberta Health Services uses a complicated formula to determine how many doctors are needed at any one time and are promising to add more in Fort McMurray.

Residents complain that some smaller communities are being served disportionately. In fact, according to the Alberta Health Services website, Grande Prairie, Alta., which has a population of about 63,000, has one more pediatrician than Fort McMurray, two more obstetricians and eight more doctors practising family medicine.

And last week, Ghassan Al-Naami's office in Fort McMurray was being kept open so patients could pick up their medical charts. Soon, the doctor, whose arrival in town four years ago was trumpeted in a news release from Alberta Health Services, will move to Vancouver to specialize in pediatric cardiology.

"My heart is broken," Dr. Al-Naami said between appointments. "In the last four years, I have built a nice relationship with my patients. I treat the kids like my own. It hurts to leave this place."

A native of Palestine who was recruited from a hospital in New Jersey, Dr. Al-Naami tendered his resignation in December. In his letter, he said he fears that patients' lives are at risk because the Northern Lights Regional Health Centre has no full-time physician dedicated to pediatric emergencies. He and other pediatricians are on call but can't respond effectively because they are not always on site, he complained.

"The greatest risk is that a newborn will have a significant problem and might not have access to expert care," he said.

Alberta Health Services disagrees with his assessment, saying there is no undue risk and pointing out that no patients have developed complications because of the on-call system. Between August, 2016, and last month, only four newborns have had to be transferred to an acute-care facility elsewhere.

In addition, two fellow physicians wrote letters to refute Dr. Al-Naami's claim. One trauma specialist argued that emergency rooms across Alberta all work similarly. Another, a long-time pediatrician in Fort McMurray, said the system is safe and that her patients always receive proper treatment until a specialist arrives. "I don't want people to think the emergency room doesn't have wonderful doctors, because they do a great job," Dr. Al-Naami said. "But I believe better service can be provided."

Dr. Al-Naami had 5,000 pediatric patients in his care and saw 500 youths and adolescents with behavioural and developmental issues. He was the town's only full-time doctor trained to handle the latter and the community's only full-time pediatric cardiologist.

"I am disappointed he is leaving," resident Krystal Churcher said. "He has been a godsend to our family and an asset to the community. I worry about the resources up here for children."

Tany Yao, a local MLA and health critic for the Wildrose Party, has invited the Alberta College of Physicians and Surgeons to Fort McMurray on Feb. 27 to hear residents' concerns. A former firefighter and paramedic, Mr. Yao also plans to issue a challenge to the Health Quality Council of Alberta to reassess the community's health-care needs.

"There is a lot of underlying concern," Mr. Yao said.

A Newfoundlander who moved to Northern Alberta 10 years ago, Tonia Rowe started a Facebook group called Fort McMurray Support for Health Care Improvement on Jan. 7. It has since grown to more than 1,400 members.

"I want us to have what every other community in Alberta is able to have," Ms. Rowe said. She has two boys – one 11 months old, the other three years old. "There is no reason we should have less health care than any community our size. I don't care how difficult it is. Alberta Health Services should take care of it."

Before she delivered twins, Ms. Beadman travelled to Edmonton numerous times for tests that were not available in Fort McMurray. On the day she gave birth, her planned cesarean section was delayed for six hours, and extra staff had to be called in.

"I don't want to criticize the care I get here, because the staff is fabulous," she said. "There are just not enough of them. For the size of this place, there should be more."

Mowaffaq Almikhlafi, medical director for the health zone that includes Fort McMurray, understands people are concerned.

He says three pediatricians have been shortlisted for positions and that an interview was conducted last week with a candidate applying to be a child psychiatrist. He promises that more general practitioners with experience delivering babies will be hired and that a pediatrician will be brought in temporarily to take Dr. Al-Naami's place in the on-call rotation.

"Fort McMurray has been through a very tough year," Dr. Almikhlafi said. "People have every right to be anxious, and I appreciate where that anxiety comes from. But we have every confidence in our system and feel it has served us well. People should feel assured their children are in safe hands."

'The fire made us closer'

Ms. Howcroft joined a group of young mothers and their children last week at a playground in Fort McMurray. Weeks away from delivering her fire baby, she pushed her two-year-old along an icy path in his stroller.

"To say that Spencer and I were immediately thrilled when I became pregnant would be a lie," Ms. Howcroft said. "We were concerned with questions about life after the fire and all of the normal fears that a couple faces with this kind of news."

Although their fears seemed monumental, it didn't take long for them to dissolve.

"The fire made us closer, stronger and more in love than we could have imagined," she said. "How could I not fall more in love with the man who stayed strong and calm getting myself and our child out of danger?"

They are waiting to cradle their fire baby in their arms.

"It is a reminder that life is always changing – and that we are so much stronger than we know," she said. "Love really is the only thing that matters."