and on top of that

Some who headed south to escape the blaze ran out of gasoline as refueling stations along the road were emptied. Alberta’s Transportation Department escorted a fuel tanker along the highway to assist stranded motorists, according to a Wednesday morning Twitter post. Imperial Oil Ltd. is also supplying fuel to evacuees who fled north at the Wapasu Creek Lodge, which normally houses oil-sands workers, the company said on Twitter.

I find it hard to grasp 100 square kilometers (40 sq miles). Who thinks in square anything?

Here is a way to grasp it: Take the square root. 10 km by 10 km = 100 sq km. 6 miles x 7 mi = ~42 sq miles.

I can relate to 7 miles, even if curvy and irregular.

is a staggering number of people.

10km = 6.2137 miles

First, Fort McMurray is not in the centre of the tar sands. We might all still blow up real big, but the camps and fields to the north are quite a drive. First only so you can get your end-times panic in check.

Second - or Firstly First!!! The northern swath of Canada was on fire all last spring/summer! The ice cap is melting baby!

Fuel shortage yes, but don't go Mad Max yet. Who keeps enough fuel in their car for a 3 hour (438km to Edmonton - next sizable non reserve town) drive on a daily basis? Canada is big.

And who the fuck is going to deal with a real calamity when a pipeline blows up here??? Huh?

btw, the TransCanada pipeline only has Canada in its name. Koch brothers own it.

for cancelling the XL Pipeline

from back on Jan 6, 2016

TransCanada sues U.S. over Keystone XL pipeline rejection

TransCanada Corp sued the U.S government on Wednesday to reverse President Barack Obama's rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline, and also plans to seek $15 billion in damages from a trade tribunal. TranCanada's lawsuit in a federal court in Houston, Texas, called rejection of its permit to build the pipeline unconstitutional. In a separate action under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the company said the pipeline permit denial was "arbitrary and unjustified."

The company's U.S. lawsuit does not seek monetary damages but wants the permit denial invalidated and seeks a ruling that no future president can block construction. Its request for $15 billion under NAFTA reflects its desire to recover its investment in the pipeline.

Defendants in the Houston lawsuit are U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and Sally Jewell, Secretary of the Department of Interior. Obama, who is not named as a defendant, rejected the cross-border crude oil pipeline last November, seven years after it was first proposed, saying it would not make a meaningful long-term contribution to the U.S. economy.

The Keystone XL was designed to link existing pipeline networks in Canada and the United States to bring crude from Alberta and North Dakota to refineries in Illinois and, eventually, the Gulf of Mexico coast.

Oh boy! NAFTA! Original.

US companies registered in Canada. BTW - did you know, stupid fucker Harper (Bush's buddy) changed some rules so that 70% of ALL THE WORLD'S GOLMINES are registered as Canadian companies?

'The company's U.S. lawsuit does not seek monetary damages but wants the permit denial invalidated and seeks a ruling that no future president can block construction.'

Pretty brazen that they want a permanent ruling like that. I shouldn't be surprised I guess.

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=15752

Dear friends,


Several months ago, I produced a documentary about Charles and David Koch for Global News, Canada’s largest private television chain. The film focused on the Koch’s vast holdings in Alberta’s controversial tar sands, their campaign to deny climate change, and the political power wielded by behemoth Koch Industries. The Koch brothers are some of the richest people in the world, yet the mainstream media rarely covers their efforts to flood big money into elections to further their corporate interests.


My documentary shed light on the sordid practices of the Koch brothers and the media blackout that abets them. But days before the video was set to air, executives at Global News pulled it from their broadcast schedule and I was fired. With no outlet for my story and no access to my video footage, I was forced to start from scratch and search elsewhere for a sponsor. That’s where The Real News Network stepped in.


I am teaming up with TRNN, to expose the Koch brothers’ war on the environment and their plan to buy the 2016 presidential election - and we need your help.

We need to raise $50,000 to produce and distribute How the Kochs and the Rich Buy Elections - a documentary exploring how big money corrupts the democratic process. The film will include interviews with insiders, experts, and activists who are both familiar with the Koch brothers and how they spend their cash and with the detrimental impact of money in elections.

You can watch my documentary promo below:

Those Koch *'s have been operating up here for over 50 years, with their dirty, greedy fingers into every single bit of it.

bloomberg is reporting the cause of this fire and we are not being informed by our msm. wtf?
however, did catch a short blurb on hln with short snips of residents in a panic and asking why nothing is being done to save their communities?!?!

well, i have an answer for them and all of us: so the tar sands oil pigs can burn out the communities and have free access and free reign for whatever the hell it is they want to do to rape and pillage the resources of alberta and beyond.

we can no longer sit by in denial. not. a. one. of. us. they are hell bent on destroying our planet and they don't care what we say or do.

This is a wildfire - it is not caused by the oil sands. It is just in the same region as big oil is working.

Of course the increase in wildfires is probably related to climate change, but the story isn't saying that.

See also Epic wildfire threatens to engulf Canadian city as 88,000 flee

"The province declared a state of emergency for what was shaping up to be Canada's costliest natural disaster.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the military can deploy air force planes to the stricken city as needed. Fort McMurray International Airport suspended all commercial flights."

they did contain the 'city fire' - look at aerial satellites - contained the perimeter and let the town down. Looks like a volcano!

That Keystone pipeline that so many (mostly Republican) people said would provide (temporary) jobs, setting up a huge pipe slicing the country all the way from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, would have been carrying this oil sand, the very same that has leaked in Canada and has caught fire and resists being put out or cleaned up. At the time Obama took a lot of flak of vetoing the pipeline project, but now it seems he saved the US from a lot of trouble that could have lasted for many decades and cost us billions of dollars.

Bloomberg is way over the top in their reporting. But what they failed to report is more to the point - this area and all the area to the east over to Hudsons Bay was on fire for 5-6 months last year.

The ice cap is melting (hugely due to us). The magnetic north is shifting (happens every now and then). We are in big shit.

The cause of it's intensity is a dry winter and low spring rainfall.

After being far too close to the two big fires in the Colorado Springs area in 2012 & 2013, I really feel for the locals in Fort McMurray.

The choking smoke, fear of losing everything, and the sheer panic of not knowing which direction those flames are going to turn next. The Waldo Canyon and Black Forest fires put years on me.

Let's hope the big air tankers are on their way. Best of luck to y'all.

God to the Canadians' who want to destroy the planet via tar sand oil.

these 90 unis take a pittance in blood money to allow 268 limbaugh stations to broadcast their sports and the stations use the logos/brand to enhance their community stature and bring in advertising revenue.

if a few unis were pushed with protests and petitions into reconsidering those self destructive and absurd relationships the gop would freak out, it would get media, and advertisers would flee all of rw radio

at a cheap $1000/hr x 15hrs/day x 1200 stations, rw talk radio is worth 4.68 BIL$/ year or 390MIL$ /month FREE for coordinated global warming denial, pro republican wall st think tank propaganda, deregulation, hate, and swiftboating

those 268 stations are worth more than $1BIL/year or $87 MIL /month to get global warming deniers elected

This fire is caused by very little snowfall this winter, not enough freezing temps to kill pine beetles, who kill trees and make them more prone to catch fire.

Either a careless person or a lightning strike set this one off, not oil activity, per the experts.

Very sad, since Fort McMurray, one of the towns affected, has seen a huge economic downturn, with properties in the area losing significant value because of dropped oil prices. Very scary and sad for these beleaguered people.

The oil industry is full of greedy cretins, true, but the oil companies are not to blame for these fires. They are helping evacuate people and set them up in camps and doing all they can to help the residents, many of whom are their employees.

I have no love for the oil industry, and I will piss on the graves of the evil Koch Brothers, but it is misleading to say the fires were a direct result of the oil sands. Generations of oil companies and automakers blocking and lobbying against alternative energy, human apathy, environmental degradation for loads of profit and pure, abject greed are the cause of climate change. So yeah, they suck, but the oil companies did not start these massive fires.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/alberta/fort-mcmurray-burns-this-is-a-nasty-dirty-fire/article29862009/