People in Fort Smith reported safe, airlift continues

Remaining people in Fort Smith were safe overnight and flights continue to get them out of the community, the town’s protective services director says.

On Monday morning, Adam McNab told CBC North’s The Trailbreaker a Hercules aircraft loaded with evacuees departed for Fort McMurray at dawn, the latest in a line of flights that ferried people to safety throughout the night.

A wildfire is believed to have reached within five kilometres of the town’s western edge.

Anyone left in the town is urged to get to the recreation centre. More aircraft are on their way to take people out of Fort Smith.

“We are safe. The people remaining in the community are safe,” McNab told the CBC.

“We believe there are approximately 70 people [remaining in the town] if you don’t include wildfire agencies and essential service workers. We have opened up a shelter-in-place location at the recreation centre and we will be moving people here, even if they aren’t willing to leave the community.

“The fire department is back out with sirens going and PAs, urging people to evacuate. As far as I’m aware, very fortunately, nobody has been hurt. We are working hard to keep it that way.”

McNab said the town was able to use some Starlink satellite internet devices to stay in touch even as fibre-line communication went down across the region on Sunday, while emergency responders had their own radio network as usual.

Hundreds of firefighters remain in the area to fight Fire 7, which was driven east toward Fort Smith on Sunday by high wind. Wind of up to 20 km/h continuing to push the fire east is expected throughout Monday.

Work is ongoing to protect as much of the town as possible with the likes of sprinklers.

“We are actively working on evacuating the entire community,” said McNab. “The sooner we can do that, the sooner we can move on to other important tasks like protecting structures.”