When the Fire Came for Fort McMurray

This article originally appeared on Outside

Canada is the world's fourth largest oil producer and the third largest exporter. Nearly half of all American oil imports--around four million barrels per day--come from there, the equivalent of one ultra-large crude carrier ship every 24 hours. Of that vast quantity, almost 90 percent originates in Fort McMurray, Alberta, a town of 66,000 full-time residents located 600 miles north of the U.S. border and 600 miles south of the Arctic Circle. Fort McMurray is an anomaly in North America--the city is an island of industry in an ocean of trees. The nearest major city and source of assistance is five hours away. Despite being virtually unknown outside of Canada and the petroleum industry, Fort McMurray has become, in the last two decades, the fourth largest city in the North American subarctic after Edmonton, Anchorage, and Fairbanks. In terms of overtime logged and dollars earned it is, without a doubt, the hardest working, highest paid municipality on the continent. In 2016, the median household income was nearly $200,000 a year. Fort McMurray has earned several nicknames over the years, and one of them is Fort McMoney.

On a hot afternoon in May 2016, five miles outside Fort McMurray, a small wildfire flickered to life, rapidly expanding through a forest that hadn't seen fire in decades. Its growth coincided with a rash of broken temperature records across the North American subarctic that peaked at 90 degrees Fahrenheit on May 3 in a place where temperatures are typically in the 60s. On that day, Tuesday, a smoke- and wind-suppressing inversion lifted, winds whipped up to twenty knots and the fire leaped across the Athabasca River. Within hours, Fort McMurray was overtaken by a regional apocalypse that drove serial firestorms through the city from end to end--for days. In this excerpt from "Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World," writer John Vaillant chronicles the moment the fire enters town, forcing nearly 90,000 people to flee in what remains the largest, most rapid single-day evacuation in the history of modern fire.

*This introduction was adapted from the book's prologue --The Editors

For exclusive access to all of our fitness, gear, adventure, and travel stories, plus discounts on trips, events, and gear, sign up for Outside+ today.