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Canada wildfire: More than 200K acres burned; some blazes 'out of control'; evacuees forced to flee again

"My nephew got out of school an hour before it burned down ... This was so poorly handled," resident Crystal Mercredi said of officials' handling of the evacuations.

By Doug G. Ware
A member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police surveys a destroyed sector of Fort McMurray in Alberta province on Wednesday after it was devastated by the massive wildfire that triggered the evacuation of nearly 90,000 residents and has so far blackened more than 210,000 acres in the region. Photo courtesy Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Alberta
A member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police surveys a destroyed sector of Fort McMurray in Alberta province on Wednesday after it was devastated by the massive wildfire that triggered the evacuation of nearly 90,000 residents and has so far blackened more than 210,000 acres in the region. Photo courtesy Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Alberta

FORT MCMURRAY, Alberta, May 5 (UPI) -- The massive wildfire in Canada's Alberta province continued to move and grow Thursday, prompting some residents of the Fort McMurray area to pack up and flee for the second time in three days.

The McMurray fire has so far prompted the evacuation of nearly 90,000 residents, officials said. Thursday, as the flames moved outward, it bore down on some areas that had been protecting some of the evacuees -- Anzac, Gregoire Lake Estates and Fort McMurray First Nation, which are located about 30 miles south of the Canadian city.

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The initial fire, though, has branched off and created 48 other wildfires in the region, officials said Thursday -- seven of which are reportedly considered "out of control."

All told in Alberta, more than 1,100 firefighters are fighting the flames on the ground, in semi-concert with 145 helicopters and numerous air tankers that are dropping fire retardant. The total area burned: more than 210,000 acres -- or about 330 square miles, which is approaching the total size of Hong Kong.

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To grasp the speed and scope of the massive wildfire, the McMurray blaze had covered less than 8,000 acres just two days ago.

"It's a nasty, ugly fire, and it is not showing any forgiveness," local fire chief Darby Allen said.

"There are certainly areas within the city that have not been burnt, but this fire will look for them, and it will find them, and it will want to take them," he said Wednesday.

Warm, dry and windy weather continue to provide the "perfect storm" of conditions for the blaze, one of the most dangerous in Canada's history, to keep eating.

"There was a mild winter and not a lot of meltwater from the mountain snow pack. Now, a stale air mass has been sitting over Alberta, and it led to very low humidity," Mike Wotton, a research scientist with the Canadian Forest Service, told the CBC. "Then there was an early, hot spring, and everything got very dry. Then on top of that, it got windy."

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Perhaps astoundingly, though, no deaths or injuries have yet resulted from the blazes or the mass evacuations -- an impressive note considering the substantial danger and close proximity of the massive flames to local highways jammed with hundreds of fleeing vehicles, and the fact that the inferno has wiped out much of the Fort McMurray area.

However, some have begun to criticize officials' handling of the evacuations, saying some were issued way too late.

"So late that people were stuck in traffic, and people were calling the radio station, saying...'We're bumper-to-bumper. We can't move. Come and save us ... we're sitting ducks,'" resident Crystal Mercredi said. "My nephew got out of school an hour before it burned down. They should not have had school yesterday. This was so poorly handled."

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