A former Londoner is describing a scene of pandemonium, thick black smoke, and acts of human kindness as frightened residents of Fort McMurray flee the burning city.
Mandatory evacuation orders were issued for the northern Alberta community on Tuesday after a raging wildfire breached the city limits. The fire sent more than 80,000 people from the oilsands city, including Chris Vandenbreekel.
The Western University graduate has lived in Fort McMurray for the past eight months. He describes the drive out of the city as frantic.
"A lot of people panicking, trying to get gas before they left, a lot of people jumping out of parking lots, swerving lanes. I narrowly avoided three collisions on the way up north," says Vandenbreekel. "Once we got on the highway, in the open clear highway, everything was fine as far as driving went. A couple people pulled off to the side to watch the smoke cloud expand. It was like an atomic bomb had hit, even from 50km out. There was panic setting in."
To make matters worse, many residents did not have time to fill up their gas tanks before hitting Hwy. 63, the main route out of the inferno.
"A lot of people abandoned their cars at the side of the highway because they ran out of gas and had to be picked up by strangers to keep going," says Vandenbreekel. "I managed to get my vehicle up here but I won't be able to get my vehicle past Anzac, if I can get that far."
Vandenbreekel says resident of Fort McMurray are incredibly generous and it really shows in situations like these.
"Right away when the first evacuation orders came, people in other neighbourhoods were like 'my door is open, come to my house,'" says Vandenbreekel "When the evacuation orders came for the entire city, people who didn't have vehicles were told by those who did to 'jump in my car, we'll go, doesn't matter if we know each other, we'll get out of this together because we are all running from the same thing.'"
Vandenbreekel says it was hard to leave the city he's called home since October.
"It's a community that I've quickly grown in love with and it's heart wrenching, heartbreaking to see it go down in flames like this."