‘Ash, smoke and flames everywhere’: Memories of the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire

FORT MCMURRAY —

A massive wildfire quickly spread into the oilsands city of Fort McMurray, Alta., on May 3, 2016. It forced more than 90,000 people out of the region, damaged or levelled 2,500 homes and scorched nearly 5,900 square kilometres of forest.

Its cause remains unknown, but officials have said it rapidly grew due to an unusually dry and hot summer.

It left a mark on many people in the city. Here are some of their memories of the day the fire known as The Beast came to town:

Ryan Pitchers, 51

The battalion fire chief had been talking to students at an elementary school and showing them a fire truck as flames neared the city, creating plumes of smoke.

“One of the teachers was like, ‘Should we be worried about that?'” remembers Pitchers.

“And I’m like, ‘Yeah, probably.'”

A few hours later, the evacuation began.

“It was organized chaos,” says Pitchers. “All departments and firefighters in Fort McMurray and nearby communities were called. We were basically: ‘Go, go, go!’

“Most of our members really didn’t stop for the first 48 hours.”

He says his neighbourhood was ravaged by the fire, but his house was spared.

The former Canadian Armed Forces member joined the city’s fire department in 2000. He’s now a battalion chief.

Sarah Thapa, 39

Thapa didn’t want to leave the city.

The nurse was with her two-year-old daughter at home and says she had been in denial about how close the fire really was. Then she looked out her apartment window.

“I saw flames were at the gas station from my window, so this is when I knew we needed to leave.”

Her husband joined them and they hit the highway. Thapa remembers trees lighting up on both sides, and flames licking their car.

A month later, residents were allowed to return to the ravaged city. Their apartment building was still standing.

While some decided to leave Fort McMurray for good, the family decided to stay.

“I stayed because of what this community is capable of doing for its people.”

Thana opened a café four years later. And after that, a second café location.

Shane Ganong, 45

The heavy duty mechanic fled with his wife and their children, and they headed south for safety in Edmonton.

Two days later, a neighbour still in Fort McMurray sent him a photo of their levelled Waterways neighbourhood.

It was gone.

“It was crazy. I couldn’t believe how bad it was,” Ganong says. “I lost everything: my house, my shop, my toys, my tools.”

The hockey card collection he started when he was 10, the hotrods and drift cars he had been building in the garage, the first vehicle he bought with his own money — a 2000 Honda XR650R motorcycle.

“I had just finished restoring it,” he says of the bike. “It had melted down to the concrete.”

He kept a melted piece, which now sits on a shelf in his new garage, in his new home, on the same spot.

The home is much bigger, he says, and so is his shop.

“It is what it is. I look at things in a way as positive as I can.”

Rob Rice, 47

As the smoke continued to grow, the owner of the local Home Hardware store sent his staff home and closed up shop so they could all get out of the city.

It was a traumatic journey for everyone, says Rice.

“It’s still crazy to me. Shocking.

“Everybody has a different story about their drive out…. You’re seeing ash, smoke and flames everywhere. Your life is on the line. You’re trapped in a traffic jam, smoke’s coming in your car, you can’t breathe.”

Rice and his staff were asked to return to the city before other residents were allowed.

They slept in sleeping bags in the store and showered at a local recreation centre while working to stock thousands of items, including refrigerators and cleaning supplies for people coming back.

Rice says he and his wife are lucky their children were born after the fire so they didn’t have to experience the chaos.

He says they don’t plan on ever moving away.

“This is home. I’ve been here for so long, I don’t know anything different.”

Michael Hull, 45

The high school gym teacher first learned of the fire from his students.

He had told some in his class to put down their cellphones. They said they couldn’t, because homes in a nearby neighbourhood were burning.

“Then I looked at my phone, because I don’t really look at my phone, and I had like probably 10 missed calls from my wife.”

She was packing bags and getting ready to leave.

He stayed at the school to make sure students got out. By the time he was ready to head home, the usual 10-minute drive took 4 1/2 hours.

It was gridlock and he was almost out of gas. There were lineups at most gas stations.

“I finally got to my wife and then jumped in her vehicle and we left town.”

He says he now makes sure every summer that his gas tank is always full in case there’s another wildfire.

Colten Petty, 33

Four days after the evacuation, the oil and gas worker and some of his friends tried to get back into the city.

Police at a checkpoint said they weren’t allowed back in. There were concerns about looters.

But they were persistent. They wanted to help save the pets that people had to leave behind.

The group managed to rescue several pets in one day.

“We saved 10 dogs, two cats and five kittens. I think the kittens were born during the fire,” Petty says.

Petty, who drives large robot trucks for Suncor Energy, lives in Saskatchewan and travels to Fort McMurray for work.

He says he still keeps in touch with the owners of two rescued dogs.

Evan Crawford, 40

The firefighter was two hours into his shift when everything changed.

The billowing smoke Crawford had spotted a day earlier while relaxing in his backyard had morphed into the massive blaze that was now in the city.

He and other firefighters first focused on getting people out safely. Then they shifted to trying to save homes.

“A lot of us didn’t stop for several days, as the fire was continually evolving.”

Crews worked around the clock, grabbing sleep when they could in trucks and on lawns.

“It’s basically like standing inside a furnace if you’re close enough to it,” he says. “It was just overwhelming to see so much destruction all at once.”

Crawford, who joined the fire department in 2009, is now president of the Fort McMurray Firefighters’ Association.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 1, 2026.

— With files from Bill Graveland in Calgary

Fakiha Baig, The Canadian Press