Canada forest fire: Shropshire family among Fort McMurray evacuees
A grandmother and her family from Shropshire are among tens of thousands of people who have been evacuated from their homes during the raging forest fire in Canada.
About 80,000 people, the entire population of Fort McMurray, have been evacuated from the city as a massive wildfire rages around the city.
Among those evacuated are Angie Cumblidge, originally from Telford, her daughter Sara Watson, Sara's husband Phil and their children.
In fact Sara's son Jordan, 26, is one of the city's firefighters and has been bravely working to protect the city from the blaze, which is now covering 85,000 hectares.
Still living in Stirchley, Telford, is Angie's sister Pat Brown, who has been keeping up-to-date with her family through Facebook and said she was delighted to receive a phone call from them for the first time on Thursday.
She said the family were given just 40 minutes to evacuate the city and were only able to take what they could carry.
Now in a hotel in Edmonton, the capital of Alberta province, the family don't know when they will be able to return to their homes or whether they will be among the lucky ones whose homes have been spared by the blaze.
Angie, 70, whose family originally came from Overdale, has lived in Canada for over 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.
Mrs Brown, a retired grandmother, said: "What has happened is that Jordan has actually stayed behind in Fort McMurray with the fire department to continue firefighting.
"In his spare time he is also going around collecting pets and animals that have been left behind during the evacuation and is taking them to the animal shelter.
"During the day the fire rages a lot more, it is about 32 degrees so it is hot anyway because it is going into their summer.
"As the days go on the winds can get quite high which fans the flames so it can get really bad."
She added: "The flames go high during the day so it is too dangerous for the firefighters so they're actually working mostly in the evenings, doing very long shifts overnight and then in between doing the animal rescues.
"Jordan is OK, he is living in the fire station with the other lads because they can't leave."
Most of the family live in the Kimberley area of Fort McMurray, which is slightly raised on a hill and so it is hoped that the fire has not yet reached it.
Fort McMurray is surrounded by wilderness and is Canada's main oil sands town.
Despite the size of the town and its importance to the Canadian economy, there are essentially only two ways out by car.
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.
Aided by high winds, scorching heat and low humidity, the fire grew from 75 square kilometres on Tuesday to 100 square kilometres on Wednesday, but by Thursday it was almost nine times that – at 850 square kilometres.
The entire city was ordered to evacuate on Tuesday and Mrs Brown said her family were given just 40 minutes to grab what they could before they had to leave their home behind.
Initially they were sent to an emergency camp on the edge of the town before Mr Weston's company arranged for jets to take people into the nearby city of Edmonton, to the hotel where they are now staying with only the clothes they were wearing when they took to the road.
Mrs Brown said: "When they were driving to the emergency camp it took them an hour to get onto the highway and people were running out of diesel and petrol.
"People were leaving their cars by the side of the road and others were picking them up so people were really working together."
She said: "It is terrifying, you can't imagine just going about your day, pottering about at home like I am with my grandson, Henry, or going to work and then hearing an alarm go and having to evacuate straight away.
"It is terrifying really.
"I've been watching it on the news and it looks like something out of a film, you just can't imagine it.
"For your family to have something so awful to happen to them, such an ordeal, I am just pleased that they are OK."