The morning light streaks orange through my hotel window in Fort McMurray. It’s not sunrise—it’s smoke. Three years after my last visit to Alberta’s oil heartland, I’ve returned to a region once again under siege from wildfires that have become distressingly familiar to residents here.
“We keep our go-bags by the door now, even in good years,” tells me Sonya Lefebvre, a process operator at Suncor who evacuated during the catastrophic 2016 fires and again last week. “It’s just part of living here now.”
What’s happening in northern Alberta isn’t staying in northern Alberta. As I write this, the impacts of these wildfires are rippling through global energy markets, driving oil prices to their highest point in months and creating economic aftershocks that reach far beyond Canada’s borders.
More than 75 wildfires are currently burning across Alberta, with over 30 classified as out of control by provincial authorities. The fires have forced major oil producers including Suncor Energy, Canadian Natural Resources, and Imperial Oil to evacuate workers and shut down operations that collectively produce over 300,000 barrels of oil per day.
Canada is the fourth-largest oil producer globally and the primary foreign supplier to the United States. These disruptions come at a particularly sensitive moment for energy markets already dealing with tensions in the Middle East and production limits from OPEC+.
“The market was already tight,” explains Warren Patterson, head of commodities strategy at ING. “When you lose production from a reliable supplier like Canada, even temporarily, traders get nervous.”
That nervousness has translated to higher prices. West Texas Intermediate crude futures jumped more than 4% following news of the Canadian production cuts, while Brent crude, the international benchmark, saw similar gains. For consumers, this means the effects of these distant wildfires may soon appear at gas pumps across North America.
Walking through Fort McMurray’s River Valley yesterday, I met James Pomeroy, who has worked in the oil sands for 14 years. “The irony isn’t lost on us,” he said, gesturing toward the hazy horizon. “We extract the stuff that contributes to climate change, which makes these fires worse, which then disrupts our ability to extract more.”
This feedback loop represents the complicated reality facing Canada’s energy sector. The country’s oil sands operations are among the most carbon-intensive in the world, yet they also represent an economic lifeline for many communities and a significant portion of Canada’s export revenue.
The Natural Resources Defense Council has documented how oil sands production generates approximately 31% more greenhouse gas emissions than the average North American crude. These emissions contribute to the very climate changes that have extended Canada’s fire seasons and increased their intensity, according to Environment and Climate Change Canada.
For Indigenous communities whose territories overlap with both oil production and fire-affected areas, the situation presents additional layers of complexity. I spoke with Councillor Sherri McKenzie from the Fort McKay First Nation, located near several major oil sands operations.
“Our community benefits from oil development through jobs and business opportunities,” McKenzie acknowledged. “But we’re also on the frontlines when environmental consequences happen, whether it’s air quality from the plants or these fires that keep getting worse.”
The wildfires have forced approximately 19,000 Albertans from their homes, according to the Alberta Emergency Management Agency. For many, it’s a traumatic replay of previous evacuations, particularly the devastating 2016 Fort McMurray fire that destroyed more than 2,400 homes and caused nearly $9 billion in damages.
Climate scientists have been clear about the connection between rising global temperatures and increased wildfire risk. A study published in the journal Science Advances found that climate change has made fire weather conditions in Western Canada 1.5 to 6 times more likely than they would have been without human-induced warming.
Dr. Flannigan, a wildfire specialist at Thompson Rivers University, puts it plainly: “What we’re seeing isn’t normal, but it is becoming our new reality. The amount of area burned in Canada has doubled since the 1970s, and climate change is the driving factor.”
The economic implications extend beyond immediate oil prices. Insurance costs in fire-prone regions have skyrocketed, with some homeowners in high-risk areas struggling to find coverage at all. The Insurance Bureau of Canada reports that annual insured catastrophic losses have quadrupled since 2008, with wildfires representing a growing percentage of claims.
After speaking with workers, residents, and officials in Fort McMurray, I drove south toward Edmonton yesterday, watching evacuation traffic heading in the opposite direction. The vehicles carried families and their most precious belongings, many with the weary efficiency of people who have done this before.
Near the town of Anzac, I stopped at a roadside assistance station where volunteers were handing out water and snacks to evacuees. Tracy Woodward, who was helping distribute supplies, shared her perspective as both an oil worker and a longtime resident.
“People outside Alberta look at us and just see oil,” she said. “They don’t see communities that are trying to make a living while also dealing with these increasingly dangerous fire seasons. We’re not separate from nature here—we’re reminded of that every summer now.”
As global markets react to the production disruptions, the people of northern Alberta are once again demonstrating resilience in the face of a threat that climate science suggests will only intensify. The question now facing Canada’s energy sector, policymakers, and communities is whether this cycle of extraction, emissions, climate change, and disaster can be broken.
For oil markets, analysts expect the price impacts to be significant but temporary, assuming production can resume within weeks rather than months. For the communities living through yet another evacuation season, the costs—emotional, physical, and financial—are harder to calculate.
As night falls in Edmonton, where I’ve relocated to file this story, the local news shows satellite images of the fires’ progression. The orange glow I saw this morning from my hotel window is now visible from space—a stark reminder that what happens in Canada’s northern forests doesn’t stay there. It rises into our shared atmosphere, flows through our global economy, and eventually comes full circle to the communities caught in between.
