A community in northern Alberta was ordered Wednesday to evacuate, as scorching temperatures across Alberta prompt heat warnings and strain crews battling out-of-control wildfires.
A provincial alert says people in Garden River, Alta., are not in immediate danger, but there are concerns the fire could cut off access to Highway 58, the only road into the community of about 700 people, located about 800 kilometres north of Edmonton in Wood Buffalo National Park.
“If the fire continues on its current pathway, we don’t want anyone getting trapped in Garden River due to lack of access to the highway, because that will be closed,” Conroy Sewepagaham, chief of Little Red River Cree Nation, said in a video address published on Facebook on Wednesday.
Residents are told to be prepared to be away for multiple days and to bring medications and important documents. They have been urged to go to the Horizon Camp on the First Nations settlement of John D’Or Prairie.
Most of Alberta is under an extreme temperature warning as a heat wave makes its way across Canada’s westernmost provinces. With no relief in sight for several days, CBC’s Travis McEwan reports on how Edmonton businesses and agencies who care for the most vulnerable people, are preparing.
Sewepagaham said the fire could threaten transmission lines, resulting in power outages in the communities of Garden River and Fox Lake.
Fire HWF061, which is about 30 kilometres away from Garden River, is one of several out-of-control blazes in the Semo Wildfire Complex in northwestern Alberta.
Alberta Wildfire said Wednesday that it has been growing as a result of the “significant heat wave over the last few days” and noted rising temperatures will play a big factor in its continuing spread.
Temperatures in the northwest part of the province are expected to reach 31 C.
Records set
A ridge of high pressure brought record-breaking temperatures to some parts of Western Canada Tuesday.
A new record of 35.8 C was set in the Jasper area, eclipsing the previous high temperature of 34.4 set in 1926. At least 13 areas of the province broke historical records, Environment Canada said Wednesday.
Temperatures in the Edmonton area reached 34.1 C, tying the previous record set in 2015.
Overnight lows ranging from the mid-teens into the low 20s will not provide much relief from the daytime heat, the weather agency said.
Albertans trying to stay cool also helped break an energy consumption record set in 2021.
The Alberta Electric System Operator, the province’s power grid operator, said a new all-time summer peak record of 11,820 megawatts was set Tuesday. The previous summer record was 11,721 MW, set on June 29, 2021.
Cooler temperatures will begin to move into northwestern regions of the province on Thursday, while parts of central and southern Alberta will moderate on Friday.
Heat warnings are issued when very high temperature conditions are expected to pose an elevated risk of heat illnesses, such as heat stroke or heat exhaustion.
Fire restrictions
The extreme heat conditions have seen varying levels of fire safety regulations, including full fire bans, enacted across the province. A fire restriction is in place for most of the province’s north as firefighters battle several out-of-control fires.
The largest of these is HWF061, which has grown to almost 40,000 hectares and forced the Wednesday evacuation order for Garden City.
Further east, the largest blaze in the Cattail Lake Complex wildfire, about 70 kilometres northeast of Fort McMurray, grew significantly overnight and is now estimated to be about 28,000 hectares in size.
That fire has remained eight kilometres from Suncor’s Firebag oilsands facility. In a Wednesday morning update, Alberta Wildfire said it was expecting “another challenging firefighting day today” with temperatures reaching a high of 35 C.
Edmontonians have their own ways to stay cool when temperatures rise — but what actually works and why? Travis McEwan speaks to a doctor about the key ways to avoid dehydration and heat stroke.