Chipewyan Chief Urges Evacuations as Wildfires Rage in Rural Alberta

Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation Chief Allan Adam said he believed more than 1,000 people were evacuated along with their pets from Fort Chipewyan in Alberta by Wednesday, May 31, as a wildfire threatened the remote community.

Footage streamed live by Adam shows smoke visible from the runway at Fort Chipewyan Airport, and aerial views of smoke in the area as seen from a helicopter.

According to CBC, the isolated location is accessible only by plane or boat in the summer months after an ice road melts, and is home to around 1,000 people who were told to evacuate Tuesday due to an out-of-control wildfire. Credit: Allan Adam via Storyful

Video transcript

- [INAUDIBLE]

[HELICOPTER BLADES WHIPPING]

- I'm Chief [? Allen ?] [? Adam, ?] and it's 4:34. And this is the last of the evacuees leaving our community. And these guys helped out a lot. Did a good job in helping us save our community, everything.

I want to say thank you all to the team from ESS. Did a wonderful job for us community members inside the plane leaving with them. We got all the dogs and the animals on the plane.

And as you see in the background, we got the fire burning. We're going to stay behind, and we're going to help protect the community in ways that we can. But just letting you know that everybody's leaving, and that's the last of the evacuees. I think we've managed to get over 1,000 people out of our community.

And don't worry. Don't worry about anything. We got this. You guys take care.

Be safe out there. [SIGHS] And we got this. Chief Adam, over and out.