Along with thousands of other Fort McMurray residents, Cheryl MacNeil had to pack her belongings and leave her home behind Tuesday afternoon.
MacNeil, who was born in Sudbury, later moved to Cape Breton, and has been in Fort McMurray for more than two years, said the situation looked okay when she woke up Tuesday.
“I thought things must have been fairly in control,” she said.
At around 1 p.m., she went to a strip mall near her downtown apartment, and by the time she exited the building almost an hour later, the situation had changed drastically.
“The skies looked like something out of a movie scene, like 'Armageddon' or something,” she said.
Sudbury.com and Huntington University have teamed up to raise relief funds for Fort McMurray that will be donated to the Red Cross for distribution.
We encourage you, if you can, to donate to the GoFundMe campaign. You can do that here.
wildfire was first reported southwest of Fort McMurray on May 1, and had expanded to the city by May 3.
MacNeil returned to her apartment and frantically packed a bag.
“I think I packed all the wrong stuff,” she said.
She received a number of calls from family members in Nova Scotia, including her son, who had recently returned to the East Coast.
By 4 p.m. yesterday, the radio had broadcast an evacuation order for all residents.
MacNeil called her boyfriend, who was working at the Syncrude oil sands development north of the city.
They agreed to meet at a lumber yard halfway between the city and the oil sands. By the late afternoon, it was impossible to evacuate south of the city because the wildfire had crossed the highway.
When MacNeil entered her building's hallway, she saw around 20 of her neighbours gathered with their own suitcases.
“There was no panic whatsoever,” she said. “Everybody was completely calm.”
One of her neighbours helped her carry her bag to her vehicle outside.
It was only once she got in the vehicle that she started to panic.
“It took me an hour to drive two blocks,” MacNeil said. “I couldn't get out, and at this point I could see the flames getting closer and closer to the hospital.”
She was eventually able to exit the city and drive north. By this point, all lanes on the highway were dedicated for northbound traffic.
MacNeil met up with her boyfriend near the lumber yard, and from there they continued north, where the oil companies had camps that were taking in people fleeing the city. Suncor and Shell have shut down their oilsands operations to house Fort McMurray evacuees.
“We weren't really sure where we were going to go, then we started to get Facebook messages from people that we knew that were staying in camps,” she said.
They eventually made it to Syncrude's Noralta Lodge, where one of her boyfriend's colleagues had lent them his room.
It would have normally taken 45 minutes to reach the lodge from Fort McMurray, but the trip was prolonged to more than three hours that day.
By Wednesday morning, when MacNeil spoke with Sudbury.com, her main concern was supplies. She said they had a limited amount of food and water at the camp, and her goal would be to head south when possible, where there would be towns and cities with proper supplies.
But she and her boyfriend were at least in a safe place, thanks to help from the community.
“I've lived in a lot of places and I've got to say this has got to be the friendliest community I've ever been in,” MacNeil said. “I've never seen a place where people try to help each other as much.”
As of Wednesday morning, officials have said fires within Fort McMurray had been extinguished.
MacNeil said she expected her building, located near a river and the hospital, would be intact, but added many of her friends and colleagues had lost their homes.
