Fox Lake, was last recorded at nearly 4,400 hectares in size as of Thursday, but it has grown and the intense fire activity and smoke has made it hard to accurately gauge the size, according to Alberta Wildfire.Areas started evacuating Wednesday afternoon but by Thursday, the situation was dire.
The only way in and out of Little Red River Cree Nation is a small barge. A line of 600 people was waiting to cross the Peace River at its busiest moment, according to Chief Conroy Sewepagaham.At one point, the fire was too close to the barge landing to use, according to officials.In a social media update around 8 p.m.
Thursday, Sewepagaham said helicopters were dumping water on houses in the community.“Unfortunately, we are losing homes left and right and centre,” he said.Determining how many homes have been lost has been hard as smoke is affecting visibility, he said.Darryl Sowan with the emergency management team said six to 10 Fox Lake residents are unaccounted for and a crew is on the ground looking for them now.“The situation is very fluid right now and we’re still waiting for information to come in,” he said.Christie Tucker of Alberta Wildfire said the fire situation across the province is rapidly changing.”We were able to conduct night time fire operations overnight using night vision technology which allows us to fight wildfire around the clock,” she said at a press conference Friday morning.Tucker said it’s expected the wildfires across the province will keep growing Friday.“It’s early in the day,” Tucker said.