Alberta cabinet minister says she wishes Fort McMurray wildfire evacuation order came sooner

The province has confirmed it will push ahead with a review of the timeline in which residents were evacuated from Fort McMurray as the monster wildfire breached the city last month.

During a news conference in Edmonton Friday held to discuss government response to the wildfire, Alberta Municipal Affairs Minister Danielle Larivee said there will be an analysis of the decisions made around the mandatory evacuation order imposed on May 3, to see if decisions were made quickly enough.

In hindsight we all wish we could have made that decision sooner and gotten people out.- Danielle Larivee 

"In hindsight we all wish we could have made that decision sooner and gotten people out," said Larivee. "But certainly no judgement in terms of the work that they did because it changed so quickly they made it at a point that made sense."

Larivee said officials have been "making note of things that we could do differently next time" but did not provide details when asked.

In the late afternoon of May 3, a mandatory evacuation order was issued for Fort McMurray. As some 90,000 residents fled the out-of-control wildfire, the blaze was already inside the city.

Many drove on roads with flames towering on either side, while others were stuck in gridlock both inside the city and on Highway 63.

In desperation, some drove in the wrong lane or on sidewalks, while many ran out of fuel and abandoned vehicles.

Some parents even drove towards the flames to retrieve children who they believed were still in schools in Abasand and Beacon Hill.

Two teenagers related to a firefighter died in a fiery crash on the highway after fleeing the city.

Larivee said the situation changed so quickly, it challenged everyone in terms of grasping what needed to be done.

She said the regional emergency operation centre and the emergency response team, which made the decision to evacuate the city, "worked tremendously well in terms of planning and guiding the residents to leave."

A day later, Alberta declared a province-wide state of emergency, a move that transferred responsibility of the operation from the municipality to the provincial government.

While Larivee could not say when the review would be conducted, she noted sooner would be better while it's still fresh in people's minds.

"We will see if we learned anything from it," said Larivee, "And based on that if we can provide some guidance to our municipal emergency response teams to see if we can help them make those decisions more effectively going forward."

'Welcome opportunity,' says fire chief

Wood Buffalo Fire Chief Darby Allen welcomed news of the review.

"This review is a welcome opportunity for the municipality to improve our emergency readiness plans and to share key learnings with the first response community, who we are incredibly proud of and thankful for," said Darby.

Larivee also praised emergency responders as "incredibly courageous." She said she was "very proud of the work" of the regional emergency operation centre and looked forward to honouring that during the analysis.

andrea.huncar@cbc.ca    @andreahuncar