Canada

The wildfires ripping through Fort McMurray this week are tearing down homes, destroying businesses, and scattering the city’s residents across Alberta. For the evacuees, many of whom still do not know the fate of their property more than 30 hours after the fires breached city limits, the shock of this sudden loss is so fresh as to be almost unthinkable.

But for the almost 80,000 residents of Fort McMurray, a city that became the poster child for Alberta’s economic woes as the price of oil plummeted, it is a loss that comes in a year full of them: lost jobs, lost property values, lost opportunities.

Like many from his hometown, Harvey Sykes was pondering his future on Wednesday morning. Hours earlier, the only home he has ever known burned down.

Mr. Sykes’ house was the last trapper’s cabin in the Waterways neighbourhood. He was born in the house in 1952, and had lived there for 64 years. “And now I’m sure that’s gone. I drove by there this morning. I lost everything,” he said. “All I had a chance to take was a change of clothes and that was it.”

More than 90 per cent of Mr. Sykes’ neighbourhood was destroyed on Tuesday.

Albertans are no strangers to disaster. Flames ripped through the town of Slave Lake in 2011, destroying 433 buildings – about one-third of the community. In 2013, large swaths of southern Alberta disappeared under flood waters, including downtown Calgary. That disaster caused an estimated $5-billion in damages.

Now, after one of the largest evacuations in Canadian history, Fort McMurray’s residents remain undaunted. The same men and women who built some of the largest industrial projects in the country say they are convinced their town will rebuild quickly.

“I really don’t know what else to say,” said Mr. Sykes, a local Métis elder. “Fort McMurray will rebuild. We’re stubborn.”