The fire known as "the Beast" was the subject last Wednesday night at a presentation in St. Walburg.
Insp. Mark Hancock, of RCMP K Division was at the centre of the extensive efforts to save Fort McMurray from that massive wildfire in May 2016. He was incident commander during the early days of the evacuation, in charge of emergency planning and operational oversight.
Those efforts were highlighted in his presentation at the St. Walburg Catholic Hall, hosted by the North West Mutual Aid Organization, an organization involved with disaster planning and preparations for the area.
Hancock’s goal in the presentation was to share ideas on how to pre-plan before a major disaster.
“You never expect for something that large to occur, but there are things you can do to prepare for a disaster like that.”
A good crowd of 50 people was on hand to hear what Hancock had to say about the Fort McMurray effort, which was the largest evacuation in Canadian history. Hancock had previously presented to Lloydminster on the initial response and evacuation, but this was a more in-depth presentation about all the emergency response efforts expended.
The fire began outside the city on May 1, but developed at such a rapid speed that it took officials by surprise. Initial efforts concentrated on voluntary evacuation of some of the residential areas.
Initially, on the first day of the fire, the RCMP set up an emergency operations centre and a local state of emergency was declared at 10 p.m. By the next day, the fire continued to grow, but the city was not yet under threat and winds seemed to be blowing the fire away from town.
But the fire jumped the Athabaska River and, on May 3, the situation rapidly escalated.
“It was so dry and the wind changed,” said Hancock. “Next thing you know, myself and my management team were getting basically photos sent to us of fires right next to houses, and then we had to act, we had to react immediately.”
Hancock showed clips from social media as well as videos taken from May 3, showing the extent of the fire at midday. One photo online showed massive plumes of smoke already in the air.
From that point on, RCMP members started scrambling to respond to reports of houses on fire, and worked to get people out of Fort McMurray.
Approximately 90,000 people were evacuated May 3, the day when the out-of-control wildfire entered the city and started ravaging several neighbourhoods.
During the evacuation members were literally running door to door in Fort McMurray in an active search-and-rescue effort to make sure everyone had evacuated. Disabled individuals were provided assistance in leaving their homes.
By late afternoon, the city was under mandatory evacuation orders, and by 6:30 p.m., Hancock said, most residents were out and on the road.
There were no lives lost that day in Fort McMurray. Despite the dangerous wildfire situation, the actual evacuation of residents went smoothly. All four north-south lanes were opened up for one-way traffic flowing north and south of the city. "There wasn't one traffic crash,” Hancock said.
It was a combination of luck and some good intelligence and co-ordination with various other agencies that are credited with getting people out.
“It’s an unbelievable story but I’m very, very proud of our members and the way they reacted with all our stakeholders,” said Hancock.
On May 4 the province had declared a state of emergency, bringing further resources to deal with the emergency.
All members of the Wood Buffalo detachment had responded to the initial call, but they were soon joined by additional RCMP from across the province and elsewhere in the country.
"We had 1,300 members come in at the time of the fire", Hancock said.
One challenge the RCMP had to deal with was continually having to evacuate from their emergency operations centres due to the wildfire. The fire was so extensive and moved so swiftly that Hancock said the RCMP had to relocate their EOC five times during the first five days.
Some good relationships with the oil companies allowed them to set up at their facilities and send out calls for service by email.
With Fort McMurray basically a ghost town, the role of police back in the city was to secure and lock down the city and make sure no property crime was taking place.
Despite this effort, the RCMP got several calls from evacuees and landlords to investigate possible looting and break-ins. It turned out no looting took place, but that was another thing they had to deal with. Hancock had to reassure people on conference calls he attended that the city was fully evacuated and that property was safe.
By May 7, fatigue was a major issue for Wood Buffalo RCMP members. Members had been working basically non-stop in dealing with the disaster since it started.
With additional supports coming in to relieve them, Wood Buffalo RCMP members and staff were picked up and driven to the Alberta Law Enforcement Response Team facility in Edmonton.
There, they all finally got some rest and were given the full resources of health, psychologists, Internet, food, clothes and other items, as well as time to reconnect with loved ones, before they could return to the field.
Interestingly, morale among the RCMP was noted as remarkably high in the months following the blaze. Hancock said there was only a four per cent sick rate in the detachment after the disaster, and he credited the swift support given to RCMP members for that.
There were 15 RCMP members who lost their homes during the disaster and five municipal staff members lost their homes as well.
A post-wildfire debriefing also began, which focused on what could be done better. That focus included things such as better communications (radios and apps) as well as supplies such as grab bags, masks and so on.
In all, it was a massive effort to respond to the wildfire and to handle the evacuation of such a large number of people in such a short period of time.
“It’s really difficult to think about it now, how large-scale it was,” said Hancock. “When you’re in the middle of it all, you’re just reacting to whatever comes in, especially on that first day, May 3.”
When the evacuees were finally able to return, a huge Canadian flag was set up above the entrance of the city on Highway 63 to welcome people back.
Now, the focus in Fort McMurray is on rebuilding. Roughly 2,400 buildings had been destroyed in the disaster. Fortunately, critical infrastructure such as the water treatment plant emerged unscathed.
The population in Wood Buffalo has gone down since the blaze to around 73,000, and the process of rebuilding homes and structures will be a major effort for the immediate future.
“It’s a community that’s going to become vibrant again soon,” said Hancock. “The rebuild is coming in the spring. I expect it to be a lot of activity, and hopefully for the good of the community.”
As for lessons for others to take away in dealing with disasters that might happen, Hancock suggested organizations do mock exercises and ensure communication systems are cutting-edge. He also emphasized preparedness and suggested bringing experts in to deal with the situation, at least during the early going.
“Communication is key, training is key,” said Hancock.
In all, Hancock looked back at the response to the situation as a success story, given the changing and unpredictable situation first responders had to deal with.
“It’s easy to play armchair quarterback, and it’s hard to predict the volatility of a fire. Could we have evacuated a day before, had that order? It probably would have been a good idea, but at the same time, it’s unpredictable. I think when we were faced with this we made the right decisions as a team, and it was effective in saving a lot of lives. Property you can rebuild. If you’re gone, you’re gone. And we were very lucky to get those 88,000-plus people out safely.”
