A Canadian Oil Sands Town on Fire: 80,000 Residents Must Evacuate
The sky in Fort McMurray, Alberta, was grey with smoke. The ground beneath was glowing red — with fire.
Like everyone else, Cassie White, a 19-year-old resident of the Canadian oil sands town, was trying to escape the flames that began to tear through neighborhoods on Tuesday. But in a car bound for Edmonton with her boyfriend, White discovered that there was no easy way out.
In an interview with the Globe and Mail, White described a scene that resembled a “zombie apocalypse.”
As she drove south, “flames jumped over the highway” and engulfed a gas station to her left. “It was torched,” White said. Everywhere she turned, there was fire:
People were driving on the shoulder. There were flames maybe 15 feet high right off the highway. There was a dump truck on fire — I had to swerve around it — and there was a pickup truck on fire as well. The entire trailer park on my right was in flames. Roofs were coming down.
More: A Canadian oil sands town on fire: 80,000 residents must evacuate