FORT MCMURRAY, Alta. -- Crews fighting to save Fort McMurray from rampaging flames water bombed the city Thursday to try to keep away a wildfire so intense they have spawned their own weather.
"It was creating its own high winds yesterday and even lightning was coming from the smoke clouds it created," Chad Morrison of Alberta Forestry told a briefing in Edmonton.
Officials could not update the number of structures that have burned -- already at 1,600 -- saying crews had not had the time.
"This is an extreme fire event," said Morrison.
"Our first priority, obviously, was the community and the homes as well as the critical infrastructure."
Morrison said there were 22 water bombers at work and more were coming in, including four from Quebec.
"But let me be clear: air tankers are not going to stop this fire," he said.
"It is going to continue to push through these dry conditions until we actually get some significant rain."
Crews received a small break Thursday with temperatures forecast to fall to 16 C from the low 30s. But low humidity and high winds were expected to keep the situation fluid and dangerous.
"I expect this fire to continue to grow," said Morrison.
The risk in the rest of the province also remain high and a provincewide fire ban was issued Thursday afternoon.
The fire, which had been menacing the oilsands capital since the weekend, rode a rapid shift in winds Tuesday afternoon to cut through the city on an east-west axis. It divided the main road and sent 80,000 residents fleeing in opposite directions under a mandatory evacuation order.
Aided by high winds, scorching heat and low humidity, the fire grew from 75 square kilometres Tuesday to 100 square kilometres on Wednesday. By Thursday it was almost nine times that at 850 square kilometres -- roughly equivalent to the size of Calgary.
The fire remained wrapped around the west and southern edges of the city. If Fort McMurray were the face of a clock, flames surrounded it from the numbers four to 11.
Evacuees began their second full day out of their homes. About 25,000 remained in oilfield work camps north of the city, while the rest had moved south to stay in hotels, in campgrounds, with friends or in designated centres that included Edmonton.
Premier Rachel Notley said the province was exploring "a broad range of supports" for evacuees and expected to roll out some initial aid plans soon.
"To those people who have been displaced from their homes, I want you to know that we have your back. You will be supported," she said.
The government said it would begin to move out the evacuees in the camps so that they could get more social supports in the south. Highway 63 is the only road through the city and those in the north were cut off when it was barricaded.
Scott Long with Alberta Emergency Management said the agency would move out the most vulnerable -- about 8,000 or so -- by air.
The plan was to send gasoline trucks in after that to fuel up vehicles for a trip through the city, once safe, and on to the south.
Fort McMurray is 435 kilometres northeast of Edmonton.
Officials said there were 350 firefighters battling the blaze -- 200 of whom were within the city keeping structures safe.
The military was on standby, but had not been called in except for helicopter support to rescue stranded residents.
The fire has proven to be as capricious as it has been hellacious, leveraging high winds to level neighbourhoods in the south and southwest, transforming homes that once housed families into smoky wastelands of concrete, rebar and ash.
Crews have managed to save critical infrastructure, such as the downtown, the hospital and the water treatment plant.
Fire threatened the airport Wednesday, but Long said it sustained "mild damage" and was still in operation.
Officials said they have yet to determine what caused the fire, although they know it started in a remote area about 15 kilometres from the city.
There have been no reports of fire-related deaths or injuries, although two people died in a head-on car crash on one of the secondary evacuation routes Wednesday.
