麻豆影视

Chris Burrows says a persistent neighbour saved his life as the raging Fort McMurray fire closed in on the house where he was fast asleep.

Burrows says he had been working night shifts 鈥� something he doesn鈥檛 typically do 鈥� and was asleep at home when an evacuation order was issued in his part of town. 

鈥淚 had earplugs in, I was sleeping away soundly and I got woken up very abruptly,鈥� Burrows told 麻豆影视 Channel on Thursday. 鈥淚 heard smashing at my front door.鈥�

The neighbour didn鈥檛 stop banging on the door until Burrows ran downstairs in his underwear and saw what he described as a 鈥�200-foot wall of flame in the block right behind us.鈥�

鈥淗e basically saved my life,鈥� Burrows said.  鈥淚 had no idea what was going on. Had they not smashed my door in, I probably would have been consumed (by fire) within half an hour.鈥�

Burrows said his house was destroyed in the fire, but he is now safe in Edmonton, along with his children and girlfriend. He also owns a restaurant in downtown Fort McMurray, but is not sure what kind of condition it鈥檚 currently in. The downtown area has so far been spared from destruction.

'I just went full throttle'

Nicholas Kulhawy said, shortly after fleeing his home in Fort McMurray, he found himself in his car close to a dirt hill in Parson's Creek.

"I thought, 'I just want to stay here, away from anything that can explode'," he told 麻豆影视 Channel on Thursday.

 Kulhawy eventually did decide to head south, which involved driving past Fort McMurray with his wife, a friend and his godson in the car.

"I don't know if I remember anything other than ashes and grey," he said of that drive. "I just went full throttle."

Kulhawy said he hasn't been able to process what's happened to his home and his community.

"There's just so much unknowns," he said. "Our home is not going to be quite the same, so it's a lot to process for us."

'It's surreal, leaving your home'

Since getting to her cousin's house in St. Paul, Alta., Melanie Galea says she's finding it hard to watch some of the footage coming out of Fort McMurray.

"It's a little bit surreal," she said, noting that she doesn't think she'll be able to watch disaster movies or television shows for some time.

"You always imagine, Oh, what would it be like to experience something like that'," Galea said. "It's surreal, leaving your home." 

She continued: "I can't think ahead. I've had a lot of people ask me what are you going to do, I don't know."

'Get somewhere safe'

Jason Blair said he probably spent about 30 minutes frantically going through his Fort McMurray home on Tuesday, trying to retrieve any possessions that were irreplaceable before fleeing his home.

But the father-of-two said it felt more like two minutes.

"I'm looking for my son's first pair of shoes," Blair told CTV's Canada AM on Thursday. "I'm frantically searching for the shoebox of my mother's things鈥�In the heat of the moment, I couldn't remember where it was."

He said he'd occasional put his search on pause to listen to the radio for an update about the encroaching wildfire that continues to devastate communities throughout the northern Alberta municipality.

"It's a beep that says get the hell out of your home and get somewhere safe," Blair recalled. "It was intense."

Looking back, he said he now feels somewhat guilty he was so easily able to make it out of Fort McMurray and to a friend's house in Cochrane, Alta. located nearly 800 kilometres south of his home.

The last he heard, his home is still standing, Blair said.

"But (the fire) is knocking on my neighbourhood. From what I see on social media, it's in every neighbourhood right now," he said.

Blair fears he'll have little work to do as a real estate agent when he finally makes it back to Fort McMurray.

"I don't know what to do from here."

'Every single person that I talk to has lost their house'

Tim Perteet said he was happy to arrive to an Edmonton evacuation centre following a 14-hour journey by bus from Fort McMurray.

"There's just bus load after bus load of people coming in now," he said early Thursday morning. "There's plenty of beds."

When he was ordered to leave his home, Perteet managed to grab his work boots, a blanket and pillow and a couple of sets of clothes.

But looking back, he says he didn't really need the clothes.

"They have clothing here. They have everything," he said.

Perteet has been working in Fort McMurray, but his permanent home is in Vancouver, and he's hoping to make his way there soon.

But that's not the case for most of the evacuees he鈥檚 encountered in the centre.

"Mostly every single person that I talk to has lost their house." 

'All of a sudden it was like dragon's breath'

Gail Bibeau estimates she had about three minutes to pack up as much as she could and flee her Fort McMurray home.

"Yesterday, we woke up and it wasn't even like there was a fire in the area. It was totally blue skies as far as you can see," she recalled. "Then all of a sudden it was like dragon's breath, the whole hillside was in flames."

Bibeau and her daughter were able to get out of the city on Tuesday and make their way to a motor home on Cold Lake. She said when her son left Fort McMurray, he was forced to head north, while her husband was at a work site. Bibeau hopes they'll soon be able to join her at the family鈥檚 motor home.

She told 麻豆影视 Channel on Wednesday that her neighbourhood is "totally gone," and described the evacuation as a "real life horror movie."

"We've seen it on TV in other places. We've seen it happen in the Slave Lake fire, but did you ever think it was going to come to your hometown?" she said. "You would never believe that it would have happened as quick as it did."

'It was really the most horrific thing'

Eden Boutilier was preparing for fire evacuees to stay at her downtown Fort McMurray house on Tuesday afternoon when she realized she wasn't safe.

"I could actually see the flames over the buildings from my balcony," she recalled. "All of a sudden, it was just coming from every direction."

Boutilier said she hastily left her house with her roommate's dog, the clothes on her back and some food items around 3 p.m.

It would be another eight hours before she'd make it to a hotel in Edmonton.

"On the highway there were fires on both sides of the road. We saw the Super 8 Hotel burning to the ground," she said. "It was really the most horrific thing I've ever seen in my life. It's devastating."

'Falling debris that was ignited'

Jordan Stuffco said he left Fort McMurray on Tuesday night, about five hours before a mandatory evacuation order was issued.

He said, while heading south on Hwy. 63, the winds changed and the flames started getting closer to the road.

"Vehicles were trying to exit into the ditch to go back down to exit northward," he said. "It was truly something else."

As he left the city, he saw flames engulfing nearby homes.

"I have friends that live in those suburbs, it was quite heart-wrenching." 

Stuffco managed to capture dramatic video of the raging fires and thick black smoke consuming the communities along the highway. But he said he didn't manage to film "the most harrowing parts."

"Falling debris that was ignited falling on the highway. Mini tornadoes forming on the roadway due to the heat and a rapid change in temperature," he described.

"I don't think that anyone really knew, or could have foreseen, how fast the fire was raging and how quickly it was able to reach the populous of downtown Fort McMurray," Stuffco said. "Truly, it was unreal the way things unfolded."