Suncor Poised to Get Back to Work as Fire Evacuations Eased
- Cooler, humid weather containing blaze in oil-sands region
- Suncor says Monday is earliest day for workers to return
FORT MCMURRAY, CANADA - MAY 11 : Fire support crew extinguish a wildfire that erupted outside Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada on May 11, 2016. Wildfire erupted on 3 May consuming 200 thousand hectares and destroying 90% of houses in Fort McMurray city.
Photographer: Anadolu Agency/Getty ImagesCooler, humid weather that’s helping control a wildfire in the heart of Canada’s oil patch is allowing Suncor Energy Inc. and Syncrude Canada Ltd. to start getting back to work.
Municipal authorities, citing improved conditions late on Friday, lifted mandatory evacuation orders for seven oil-sands worker accommodation camps and production facilities in Alberta, including Suncor’s base plant mine and Syncrude’s Mildred Lake mine. That’s much sooner than they’d predicted just hours earlier, under the expectation that air quality would need to improve and a few more days of firefighting would be necessary to make those sites safe.