The Athabasca River is a river in Alberta, Canada, which originates at the Columbia Icefield in Jasper National Park and flows more than 1,231 km (765 mi) before emptying into Lake Athabasca. Much of the land along its banks is protected in national and provincial parks, and the river is designated a Canadian Heritage River for its historical and cultural importance. The scenic Athabasca Falls is located about 30 km (19 mi) upstream from Jasper.
Oil sands are a type of unconventional petroleum deposit. They are either loose sands, or partially consolidated sandstone containing a naturally occurring mixture of sand, clay, and water, soaked with bitumen.
Fort McMurray is an urban service area in the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo in Alberta, Canada. It is located in northeast Alberta, in the middle of the Athabasca oil sands, surrounded by boreal forest. It has played a significant role in the development of the national petroleum industry. The 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire led to the evacuation of its residents and caused widespread damage.
The Athabasca oil sands, also known as the Athabasca tar sands, are large deposits of oil sands rich in bitumen, a heavy and viscous form of petroleum, in northeastern Alberta, Canada. These reserves are one of the largest sources of unconventional oil in the world, making Canada a significant player in the global energy market.
The Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo is a specialized municipality in northeast Alberta, Canada. It is the largest regional municipality in Canada by area and is home to oil sand deposits known as the Athabasca oil sands.
Teck Resources Limited, known as Teck Cominco until late 2008, is a diversified natural resources company headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, that is engaged in mining and mineral development, including coal for the steelmaking industry, copper, zinc, and energy. Secondary products include lead, silver, gold, molybdenum, germanium, indium and cadmium. Teck Resources was formed from the amalgamation of Teck and Cominco in 2001.
Petroleum production in Canada is a major industry which is important to the overall economy of North America. Canada has the third largest oil reserves in the world and is the world's fourth largest oil producer and fourth largest oil exporter. In 2019 it produced an average of 750,000 cubic metres per day (4.7 Mbbl/d) of crude oil and equivalent. Of that amount, 64% was upgraded from unconventional oil sands, and the remainder light crude oil, heavy crude oil and natural-gas condensate. Most of the Canadian petroleum production is exported, approximately 600,000 cubic metres per day (3.8 Mbbl/d) in 2019, with 98% of the exports going to the United States. Canada is by far the largest single source of oil imports to the United States, providing 43% of US crude oil imports in 2015.
Highway 63 is a 434-kilometre (270 mi) highway in northern Alberta, Canada that connects the Athabasca oil sands and Fort McMurray to Edmonton via Highway 28. It begins as a two-lane road near the hamlet of Radway where it splits from Highway 28, running north through aspen parkland and farmland of north central Alberta. North of Boyle, it curves east to pass through the hamlet of Grassland and becomes divided west of Atmore where it again turns north, this time through heavy boreal forest and muskeg, particularly beyond Wandering River. Traffic levels significantly increase as Highway 63 bends through Fort McMurray, crossing the Athabasca River before connecting the city to the Syncrude and Suncor Energy plants further north. It ends approximately 16 km (10 mi) beyond a second crossing of the Athabasca River northeast of Fort McKay.
Chinchaga Wildland Provincial Park is a wildland provincial park in northwestern Alberta, Canada. The park is a 802.7 square kilometres (310 sq mi) environmentally protected tract of land within the 5,000 km2 (1,900 sq mi) of the greater Chinchaga wilderness area. It is a disjunct outlier of the Foothills Natural Region of Alberta. It was established on 15 December 1999. The greater Chinchaga area was identified in 1995 as an Environmentally Significant Area. It was designated by the Alberta Government as a protected area under the "Special Places" program. The park is administered by the Upper Peace Land Use Framework.
Northern Alberta is a geographic region located in the Canadian province of Alberta.
The Kearl Oil Sands Project is an oil sands mine in the Athabasca Oil Sands region at the Kearl Lake area, about 70 kilometres (43 mi) north of Fort McMurray in Alberta, Canada that is operated by the 143-year old Calgary, Alberta-headquartered Imperial Oil Limited—one of the largest integrated oil companies in Canada. Kearl is owned by Imperial Oil and is controlled by Imperial's parent company, ExxonMobil—an American multinational that is one of the largest in the world.
A large wildfire burned through Slave Lake, Alberta, Canada and its surrounding area from May 14 to 16, 2011. The conflagration, which originated 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) outside of town as a forest fire, was quickly pushed past fire barriers designed to protect the town by 100-kilometre-per-hour (60 mph) winds. The fire forced the complete evacuation of Slave Lake's 7,000 residents—considered the largest such displacement in the province's history at the time—to the nearby towns of Athabasca and Westlock, as well as the provincial capital of Edmonton. No casualties were reported amongst the town's population, but a pilot was killed when his helicopter crashed while he was battling the fires around the community.
Waterways is a locality within the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo in northern Alberta, Canada. It is now a neighbourhood within the Fort McMurray urban service area along the west bank of the Clearwater River, south of the river's confluence with the Athabasca River.
The Chinchaga fire, also known as the Wisp fire, Chinchaga River fire and Fire 19, was a forest fire that burned in northern British Columbia and Alberta in the summer and early fall of 1950. With a final size of between 1,400,000 and 1,700,000 hectares, it is the single largest recorded fire in North American history. The authorities allowed the fire to burn freely, following local forest management policy considering the lack of settlements in the region. The Chinchaga fire produced large amounts of smoke, creating the "1950 Great Smoke Pall", observed across eastern North America and Europe. As the existence of the massive fire was not well-publicized, and the smoke was mostly in the upper atmosphere and could not be smelled, there was much speculation about the atmospheric haze and its provenance. The Chinchaga firestorm's "historic smoke pall" caused "observations of blue suns and moons in the United States and Europe". It was the biggest firestorm documented in North America, and created the world's largest smoke layer in the atmosphere.
On May 1, 2016, a wildfire began southwest of Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada. On May 3, it swept through the community, forcing the largest wildfire evacuation in Alberta's history, with upwards of 88,000 people forced from their homes. Firefighters were assisted by personnel from both the Canadian Armed Forces and Royal Canadian Mounted Police, as well as other Canadian provincial agencies, to fight the wildfire. Aid for evacuees was provided by various governments and via donations through the Canadian Red Cross and other local and national charitable organizations.
The 2019 Alberta wildfires have been described by NASA as part of an extreme fire season in the province. In 2019 there were a total of 803,393.32 hectares, which is over 3.5 times more land area burned than in the five-year average burned. The five year average is 747 fires destroying 146,360.08 hectares. There were 644 wildfires recorded in Alberta. By May 31, 10,000 people had been evacuated, 16 homes, and the Steen River CN railway bridge, had been destroyed.
The Canadian province of Alberta faces a number of environmental issues related to natural resource extraction—including oil and gas industry with its oil sands—endangered species, melting glaciers in banff, floods and droughts, wildfires, and global climate change. While the oil and gas industries generates substantial economic wealth, the Athabasca oil sands, which are situated almost entirely in Alberta, are the "fourth most carbon intensive on the planet behind Algeria, Venezuela and Cameroon" according to an August 8, 2018 article in the American Association for the Advancement of Science's journal Science. This article details some of the environmental issues including past ecological disasters in Alberta and describes some of the efforts at the municipal, provincial and federal level to mitigate the risks and impacts.
The 2024 wildfires in Canada began as an extension of the record-setting 2023 wildfires. The country experienced an unusually long fire season in 2023 that lasted into the autumn; these fires smouldered through the winter and about 150 re-ignited as early as February 2024. By early May, large wildfires had broken out in Alberta, British Columbia, and Manitoba. Soon after, there were significant fires in Saskatchewan, the Northwest Territories, and Newfoundland and Labrador.
In July 2024, a wildfire complex developed in Jasper National Park in Alberta, Canada. Fires formed north and south of the resort town of Jasper and grew out of control, and on July 22 they forced a mass evacuation of 25,000 residents, workers, and visitors. The fires merged and swept through the town, destroying 358 of its 1,113 structures. The evacuation order lasted until August 17, but fires to the south continued to burn out of control. On September 7 Parks Canada announced that the wildfire was under control with the fire estimated to be 32,722 hectares in size. One firefighter was killed in efforts to contain the blaze, and insurance companies paid $880 million in claims, making it one of the most expensive natural disasters in Canadian history. Jasper fire topped the list of Canada’s 10 most impactful weather stories of 2024.
