Wildfire continues to blaze near Noralta Lodge Ltd.’s Fort McMurray Village on Wednesday, 26 kilometres north of the city. The government extended the mandatory evacuation zone late Monday.
Oil sands companies will not be permitted to return to their facilities until the mandatory evacuation order – which is now heavily dependent on air quality – is lifted, giving the Alberta government increased control over the timing of the firms' ability to restart operations.
The provincial government late Monday evening extended the mandatory evacuation zone around Fort McMurray to just south of Fort McKay as the fire and smoke became too dangerous. The enlarged zone, which includes 19 work camps and Suncor Energy Inc.'s and Syncrude Canada Ltd.'s major mines and facilities, was not under a mandatory evacuation order when workers began returning late last week. That meant oil companies were free to send thousands of workers to projects north of the city, only to have to rush them out for the second time in just more than two weeks when the mandatory evacuation order came down.
With the mandatory evacuation order in place, oil sands companies must first have clearance from the government before executives have the power to decide whether it is safe to return. And the order will not dissolve until a number of conditions are met and the air quality improves.
"We never required them to leave [the area north of Fort McMurray] until earlier this week," Municipal Affairs Minister Danielle Larivee told reporters Thursday. "There was no imposition or removal of a mandatory evacuation order, so there was no either letting them come or go involved prior to that."
But now the government will not erase the mandatory evacuation order blanketing the oil sands, Fort McMurray and the city's neighbouring communities until a number of conditions such as restoring basic services are met. It is possible workers will be allowed to re-enter the oil sands zone before people are permitted to return to Fort McMurray. Premier Rachel Notley expects Fort McMurray to be habitable June 1, although that is subject to change.
Two determining factors are beyond the control of oil sands executives: The fire must no longer be an "imminent threat" and the air quality must be acceptable. Air quality around Fort McMurray and the oil sands has been fluctuating, and has shot far beyond what the government has determined acceptable.
Flames burned "up to the edges" of open areas surrounding Suncor and Syncrude's operations, provincial wildfire manager Chad Morrison said Thursday. The blaze was moving to the northeast, away from the community and oil sands operations Thursday morning. So far, it has consumed more than 500,000 hectares, equivalent to all of what was burned during last year's fire season, Mr. Morrison said.
"The threat definitely has diminished around the communities and the oil sands facilities for sure. But it still is early on this fire," he told reporters.
Alberta lawmakers and oil sands representatives are having calls twice a day to discuss the fire situation, a government spokeswoman said.
Alberta's oil production has dropped more than one million barrels a day because of the outages. This comes as Standard & Poor's on Thursday downgraded its debt rating for Alberta to double-A from double-A-plus. It maintained its negative outlook on the province because of its unwillingness to take "additional fiscal measures to improve its structural budget shortfalls." The fire will also stunt growth in the second quarter, the debt rating agency said.
Roughly 90,000 people have been evacuated from Fort McMurray, Anzac, neighbouring First Nations and the oil sands area since the fire first reached the city May 3. Many of the evacuees returned to the oil sands late last week, before Monday's second evacuation took hold. The blaze torched a work camp Tuesday and continues to threaten others. The inferno is also threatening Northland Forest Products Ltd.'s sawmill.
Carrie Tait