Premier Justin Trudeau traveled to Alberta on Monday to meet with soldiers battling wildfires that worsened over the weekend, forcing evacuations and impacting energy production in Canada’s primary oil-producing province.
This month, more than 100 wildfires have raged, at one point forcing more than 30,000 people from their homes and causing oil and gas producers to close down at least 319,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd), or 3.7% of national production.
Alberta officials expect hot and dry weather, which has increased wildfires and home evacuations.
“The wildfire situation is extremely volatile,” said Colin Blair, chief of Alberta Emergency Management.
Residents of a town under an evacuation alert must be ready for an instant evacuation.
Our peak burning period, which is when temperatures are at their highest and fuels are at their driest, is still in front of us,” Alberta Wildfires official Josee St-Onge said in a Sunday afternoon briefing.
“It is too early to predict when the apex of this wildfire season will occur… We will continue to face difficulties.” More than 19,000 people were evacuated from 89 Alberta fires on Sunday afternoon, 25 of which were out of control. On Friday, there were 74 fires and approximately 16,500 evacuees.
Benchmark Last week, Canadian heavy crude prices reached multi-month highs due to conflagration concerns.
Sunday night, Paramount Resources announced that, owing to the fires, a third-party gas processing plant and some Paramount fields had been shut down, and that the company had reduced production by 45,000 boepd.
Monday, Vermilion Energy announced that it had restored 60 percent of the 30,000 boepd it had previously shut down.
The Alberta government says the Canadian army has been helping with firefighting and recovery since Thursday, with more troops anticipated.
St. Onge stated that officials anticipate more hazardous wildfire conditions. In the upcoming days, the weather will remain humid, dry, and breezy.
According to St-Onge, in addition to the hundreds of reinforcements from across Canada, including the army, who have arrived to help fight the fires, 200 individuals from neighboring U.S. states have also joined the effort.
Trudeau was slated to meet with Canadian Armed Forces personnel in Edmonton, Alberta, before departing for Seoul to meet with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, according to the prime minister’s itinerary.
Canada’s economy suffered from forest fires in the oil deposits region in 2016, which displaced 100,000 people from Fort McMurray.
British Columbia endured record-high temperatures and wildfires in 2021, killing over 500 people.
