Evacuees find safe haven as wildfires engulf Canada oil region

Sitting on the tailgate of his truck, strumming his guitar, the only item that he was able to salvage in a hurried evacuation of Fort McMurray as wildfires raged closer to the Canadian oil city, Alan Javierto says: "I just want to go home." "Hopefully soon," he adds. "But probably it will take weeks, maybe more." The wildfires that forced almost 100,000 to flee and abandon fire-gutted neighborhoods were "unreal," he said. "I've never seen anything like it except in the movies," he said. "It's overwhelming." Javierto had been "hanging out with this guy" when the evacuation was ordered, he says, pointing to his friend Victor Pastoporin seated next to him outside an evacuation center in Lac La Biche, about 300 kilometers south of Fort McMurray. "It was a nice day, a perfect day," he said. "Suddenly, it got darker and darker, and hotter and hotter." According to several first-hand accounts, residents of Fort McMurray were initially hopeful that the fire would pass them by. Some packed bags in anticipation of an evacuation order. Others were caught off guard, literally fleeing with the clothes on their back. "There's no guide on how to get out of a forest fire," Javierto explained. Another evacuee who spoke to AFP described sitting outside his home, watching a few faraway bushes burn before the entire forest suddenly exploded into flames. The last image Javierto and Pastoporin remember before fleeing was Pastoporin's house on fire. "But we're still here, that's what matters, and playing music," Javierto said. Another evacuee, Carla, who did not wish to give her last name, said she spent the last night in a parking lot behind the Lac La Biche high school. She described having struggled to make contact with friends and family, including her children, after being separated during the evacuation. They are safe now. Holding back tears, she considered what has become of her home: "There's nothing there. There's nothing left. So many homes gone." From Lac La Biche she said she hoped to travel east to Ontario or Newfoundland provinces where she has extended family. Others are still in limbo with no plans for how to resume their lives gutted by the fire. - 'A roof over my head' - Lac La Biche is the the third evacuation stop this week for Karla Buffalo. With her dogs Daisy and Tulip in tow, she had tried to travel south from Fort McMurray to the provincial capital Edmonton, but a wall of flames forced residents to turn around and head north instead, towards Alberta's oil fields. Eventually, she and others were evacuated to the town of Anzac, where the fire emergency response center had also moved after thick smoke closed its former site at the Fort McMurray airport. But the flames followed too, and again evacuees found themselves on the move, loaded onto buses to Lac La Biche. The town's recreation center is now filled with hundreds of displaced people and volunteers distributing donated clothes, food and other necessities -- including dog treats and leashes. A temporary kennel was even set up for Buffalo's dogs Daisy and Tulip and the pets -- including a small pig -- of other arrivals here. Buffalo says she has been through forest fires before, but never an evacuation of this scale. "I can't complain. I have a roof over my head, everyone has been fed and the attitudes of people here have been incredible," she told AFP. "Everyone has been very generous."