Fort McMurray residents may smell smoke but fires aren’t close, officials say

FORT MCMURRAY, Alta. — Officials in Fort McMurray, Alta. are reassuring residents that smoke they may be smelling is not from a nearby fire.

The Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo issued a statement on Saturday advising that smoke from wildfires in the Northwest Territories is blowing through northern Alberta.

It says there are no active wildfires in the vicinity of Fort McMurray or surrounding communities.

The Northwest Territories government says 19 new fires were reported in the 48 hours before Saturday and that close to 10 square kilometres had burned, but only two structures in the North Slave region were lost.

A wildfire that spread into Fort McMurray on May 3 forced more than 80,000 people to leave for nearly a month and destroyed roughly 2,400 homes and other buildings.

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