Is Thunder Bay ready for a disaster like the Fort McMurray wildfire?

There is no way any community could be prepared locally for the sheer size, and unpredictability of the wildfire that has devastated Fort McMurray, says John Hay, chief of Thunder Bay Fire Rescue.

• 'Catastrophic' Fort McMurray wildfire surpasses 10,000 hectares

"There is no real way to prepare for something of that power and magnitude. What you can do is have plans in place to move people to places of safety, to think about how you're going to rebuild, and to see if you can mitigate some of the damage," he said.

However, the city's Emergency Operations Centre group — comprised of first responders, non-governmental organizations, service agencies and municipal officials — has thought about the logistics of a mass evacuation, should that ever be necessary.

"We would have to have a lot of participation and co-operation from the community," said Hay.

'Same struggles as Fort McMurray'

All forms of transportation, including rail and shipping on Lake Superior as well as highways, might be used to get people out of the city, "but something of that scale, we would certainly have the same struggles that Fort McMurray is having right now."

The speed of the disaster in Alberta shows why it's important to have your own "72-Hour kit" available, said Hay.

Hay described the kit as containing the key items you would need to sustain you for three days, and it should be something that's easy to grab, and go.

"So, 'oh, we're being evacuated, we need to leave.' So they may have documents in that kit, or photocopies of the documents they would need, photocopies of prescriptions, clothes, water, so I think everybody should be prepared."

However,  the challenge, whether you're an individual or an emergency group is knowing what exactly you're preparing for, said Hay.

'Decisions based on circumstances of the day'

"No community affords having all the emergency services in place to cover any contingency. It's just not something we do, but we share resources, and we share assets."

"There's so many factors that go into a decision on how much we're going to do, or how little we're going to do, or what those tactics would be. It will be based on the circumstances of the day."

But in any disaster, as was shown in the 2012 flood in Thunder Bay, it remains vital to keep the public informed about a crisis as it unfolds, and take full advantage of social media to do that, said Hay.