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The 2011 Slave Lake wildfire was a large fire that burned through the Town of Slave Lake, Alberta, Canada and its surrounding area from Saturday, May 14, 2011 through Monday, May 16, 2011. The conflagration, which originated outside of town as a forest fire, was quickly pushed past fire barriers designed to protect the town by 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. The fire destroyed roughly one-third of Slave Lake; 374 properties were destroyed and 52 damaged in the town, and another 59 were destroyed and 32 damaged in the surrounding Municipal District of Lesser Slave River No. 124, leaving 732 residents homeless. The town hall was completely gutted by the fire, as was the library and radio station. The hospital, Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) station and schools remained standing, however. Insurable damage was estimated at C$700 million, making it the second costliest insured disaster in the country's history at the time. A local developer suggested it would be months before the community could even begin to rebuild. An RCMP investigation concluded that the cause of the fire was arson; however, no arrests were made. The disaster prompted an outpouring of support from across the province, and across Canada. The Canadian Red Cross and disaster relief agencies in Edmonton were inundated with donations—enough that they asked people to no longer make donations directly at the evacuation centres. ATB Financial offered to defer mortgage and loan payments for affected residents, while a Calgary-based rental company offered rental suites in Edmonton to displaced residents free of charge for three months. The provincial government promised $50 million in immediate aid to the town. ==2011 fire season== Wildfires are common in Canada. Nearly 9,000 such fires occur every year across the country, and collectively burn two million hectares of land. Such fires in Alberta usually occur in remote areas and rarely threaten populated settlements. The last fire to seriously affect a community in Alberta destroyed 59 buildings in the hamlet of Chisholm in 2001. The Slave Lake area has been threatened by fires in the past. Communities on the eastern outskirts of town were evacuated in 2001 by an approaching fire, while the town was saved from destruction by change in the winds in 1968. The province faced unusually dry conditions and high winds throughout the spring, leading to extreme risk of fire across much of the province. By mid-May, over 100 wildfires were burning across the province, including 23 that were considered out of control. Over had been burned, and the majority of the fires were in the Lesser Slave Lake area, where 15 fires were burning out of control. Nearly 1100 firefighters were battling the blazes across the country.〔 As a consequence of the fire conditions, the provincial government enacted a complete fire ban across the entire province ahead of the Victoria Day long weekend; it was only the second time in history the government had issued such an order.〔 The fire that struck Slave Lake started east of town around 1:30 pm on Saturday, May 14, and grew to within three hours. An evacuation order was issued for 250 people who lived in the area, while a second fire burning west of Slave Lake, near the hamlet of Wagner, prompted provincial officials to order the evacuation of 800–900 people from that area. Displaced residents were sent to Slave Lake, where the town's fire chief initially expressed confidence that the town itself was not in serious danger, though Slave Lake declared a local state of emergency on Saturday night. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「2011 Slave Lake wildfire」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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