The lessons of a wildfire that destroyed a town and burned for 15 months
Enlarge / The aftermath of the Fort McMurray fire. (credit: Katie Daubs)
Editor's note: we have been made aware that the draft form of the book that was reviewed contains some significant errors. We are looking into the details of the errors further. We are leaving the piece up in the mean time, as it provides some context for the discussion of this review in our comments.
At noon on May 3, the fire chief in the oil town of Fort McMurray was on TV telling everyone that the situation was in hand and they should stay at work and school and go to little league or whatever as usual. He had been watching the fire for a couple of days, but business as usual was what they did in Alberta in the spring; it was wildfire season, after all. At 2:05 evacuation orders started to come through. By 10 that night, much of the city that was not yet incinerated was burning.