The view from one of our flight crews as they worked to evacuate patients from Fort Nelson last night.
© BC Emergency Health ServicesThe view from one of our flight crews as they worked to evacuate patients from Fort Nelson last night.
Wildfire season has arrived in full force in Western Canada, prompting evacuation orders and alerts in several towns in British Columbia and neighboring Alberta due to the danger of uncontrolled blazes.

Hundreds of residents in four neighborhoods in the southern end of Canada's oil sand hub of Fort McMurray, Alberta, were ordered to evacuate with a wildfire threatening the community, authorities said.

A large wildfire is slowly approaching the major Canadian oil sands city of Fort McMurray and around 6,000 people in four suburbs have been told to evacuate, local officials said.

With over 100 active wildfires burning in Canada, wildfire smoke has drifted across the border into the United States, prompting Minnesota officials to issue the state's first air quality alert of 2024.


Forecasts called for wind that could blow a growing wildfire closer to Fort Nelson. Emergency workers had been phoning as many of the estimated 50 residents still in town and urging them to go. The community of about 4,700 and the neighboring Fort Nelson First Nation have been under an evacuation order since last Friday.

Northern Rockies Regional Municipality Mayor Rob Fraser said one drawback of the evacuation is the challenge for essential staff, including firefighters, to find food.

Canada's oil sands industry produces roughly 3.3 million barrels per day of crude, two thirds of Canada's total output.

In 2023, Canada experienced a record number of wildfires that caused choking smoke in parts of the U.S. and forced more than 235,000 Canadians to evacuate their communities. At least four firefighters died.