Shropshire Star

Wildfires in Canada: Shropshire woman's long wait to see if home is still standing after blaze

A grandmother who left Shropshire to live in Canada will have to wait for two months before she finds out if her house is still standing.

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Angie, her daughter Sara Watson, Sara's husband Phil and their children have been living in a hotel in Edmonton, the capital of the Alberta province, since May 3

They now say it could be months before they can return home, and still have no idea if they will have a home to go back to.

A helicopter flies past a wildfire in Fort McMurray

Still living in Stirchley, Telford, is Angie's sister Pat Brown, who has been keeping up-to-date with her family through Facebook and phone calls when she can.

Mrs Brown said: "It seems likely it will be at least two months before they can return home. What a long time. All the mains services, electrics and so on have to be checked to make sure it is all safe to use.

"The main thing is they are all safe and all together."

people were forced to evacuate Fort McMurray

Angie, 70, whose family was originally from Overdale, has lived in Canada for more than 45 years after marrying a Canadian whom she had met while living in Bristol.

Daughter Sara, 46, was only six months old when the family moved, originally to live on Vancouver Island.

Her Canadian husband Phil works for the Williams oil company on the oil sands of Alberta which is why the family moved to live in Fort McMurray.

Their three children Josh, 30, firefighter Jordan, 26, and childcare worker Sophie, 18, were all born in Canada and live and work in Edmonton and Fort McMurray.

Jordan, 26, has been bravely working to protect the city from the blaze.

The family were given just 40 minutes to evacuate the city and were only able to take what they could carry.

Fort McMurray is surrounded by wilderness and is Canada's main oil sands town.

The region has the third largest reserves of oil in the world behind Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. Oil sand is a naturally occurring petrochemical that can be upgraded into crude oil and other petroleum products.

Yesterday it was announced that authorities in Alberta have launched an app offering residents of Fort McMurray a view of their homes. It will allow people to see if there has been any damage, although the images will not provide detail of the extent of that damage.

Alberta municipal affairs minister Danielle Larivee warned that viewing the satellite images might be traumatic and provided contact details for Alberta's Mental Health Help Line.

Evacuees like Mrs Cumblidge and the Watson family will now start receiving direct financial assistance from the Alberta government and the Canadian Red Cross.

The Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau visited the devastated city on Friday almost two weeks after the wildfire started, making an aerial tour by military helicopter.

He took a helicopter ride over a patchwork of devastated neighbourhoods, where some homes still stand.

The blaze tore through the isolated region and surrounding areas, causing several oil sands operations to shut down.

Alberta officials said they will have a plan within two weeks for getting residents back into their homes.

Alberta officials said 2,432 structures were destroyed, 530 damaged and 25,000 saved. Altogether, 85 to 90 per cent of the city was saved.

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