Some 80,000 people were officially told to evacuate after homes in some neighbourhoods were burned out in Fort McMurray in northern Alberta. Evacuation is mandatory. Conditions are tinder dry, after a very dry winter and spring, forest fires have crept up to the outskirts of town. The problem is, Fort Mac is serviced by only 1 major highway and it is in total gridlock as people try to leave. This is the largest fire evacuation that has ever been in Alberta and bigger than the Slave Lake evacuation in 2011.

This is after the NDP government of the day decided to cut back on the firefighting budget this year even though it was obviously this was going to be a severe fire fighting year.

Where do 80,000 people go on a moment's notice? Hopefully, the residents had their plans in place and the BOBs all loaded.

Last year in my province of Saskatchewan we had the town of La Ronge and other communities evacuated when fire burned to the outskirts - that was a mere 13,000 people and were housed in centres all over the province.

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada...reach-city-edge