![VIDEO – Canada in the grip of several major fires in the West VIDEO – Canada in the grip of several major fires in the West](https://media.lesechos.com/api/v1/images/view/6644a03d9f486e3ab143a7d9/1280x720/090366523730-web-tete.jpg)
More than 6,000 residents of the oil town of Fort McMurray, Alberta, have been ordered to evacuate, after a fire has already burned more than 9,600 hectares in the region. A figure which should soon be revised upwards because the fire has continued to develop since this estimate, the authorities indicated.
“The fire expanded significantly to the northeast yesterday and continues to grow in that direction today. The wind is pushing it towards the town of Fort McMurray,” said Alberta’s provincial fire information officer.
Violent fire in 2016
Many residents took their cars to leave the city by a road towards the South. The region, a large oil sands production area, had already been the scene of a violent fire in 2016.
Further west still, in British Columbia, the town of Fort Nelson also finds itself threatened by fires. “We gathered 3,500 people and moved them 400 kilometers south, with our elders and elderly people, and we did all this in six hours,” the mayor of the municipality said in a video.
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