My eldest daughter and son in law live in North Eastern BC in Fort St John, about 350 miles from Fort McMurray AB where the worst fires and the worst of the devastation has taken place to date. Their town is also being threatened by large fires nearby and all residents have been put on alert if conditions change where the fires change course towards town. Like Fort Mac in Alberta, Ft St John is BC's northern energy hub, with LNG and oil operations throughout the region. My daughter and son in law are researcher and by law officer respectively for the Oil and Gas Commission, and their jobs have changed in the past weeks to working with firefighting crews to ensure that major gas and oil operations and exploration sites are located and monitored in conjunction with where the fires are burning and heading... very tense and nervous times up there.... especially with those operations out in the field.
Of course the total devastation of those in the Fort Mac region is terribly sad... they had no real chance with very little warning , many have lost everything. Large forest fires in BC and northern regions of Canada can be common in Summer months, but rarely this early in the year.
Just like when you hear of flooding, tornados, etc. in other regions of the US or Canada where we easily familiarize and identify ourselves with the people being affected through news reports, etc, you just really feel for those people, and hope to help in some way if possible. On behalf of this Canadian who has family and many friends in these two specific regions, thank you for the thoughts/prayers
