Alberta province, Canada. The city of Fort McMurray, the hub of oil sands production facilities, lies deserted, without electricity, water or gas, besieged by flames, and its population has been evacuated due to the fires devastating the region.

Fort McMurray had experienced rapid growth thanks to the boom in oil sands extraction facilities, and there are fears that it will not be restored to its previous level of development.

The state of emergency

Authorities declared a state of emergency on Wednesday, after the fires, which began on 1 May, spread uncontrollably through the surrounding forests and swept into the city itself.

Only now, seven days after the fires broke out, are authorities beginning to feel more optimistic, as light rainfall and a change in wind direction have contained the spread of the flames and pushed them away from the populated area. But the emergency is far from over: as recently as yesterday, 34 fires, five of them out of control, were still burning, despite the efforts of 500 firefighters, 15 helicopters and 14 water-bomber aircraft.

The disaster in figures

The scale of the emergency is enormous: 161,000 hectares ablaze (for comparison, the municipality of Rome covers just under 129,000), 88,000 people evacuated, 20 per cent of Fort McMurray destroyed, and oil sands crude production reduced by one million barrels per day. Insurance losses are estimated at at least 9 billion Canadian dollars (six billion euros). According to Reuters, this could be the costliest disaster in Canadian history.

The market outlook will also feel the effects of the situation, which is estimated to stall the country's growth in the second quarter, while the drop in crude production has already contributed, along with other factors, to a 2 per cent rise in the price of a barrel. Several pipelines and facilities have been shut down as a precaution, while at least one plant has halted operations due to smoke.

The causes of the fires in Alberta

The precise origin of the fires has yet to be established, and authorities plan to deploy drones and aircraft in the coming days to identify the area where the fire started. In any case, the shadow of climate change looms over everything, with temperatures above and precipitation below the seasonal average.

There is a grim irony in seeing the capital of Canadian oil go up in flames in a fire facilitated by climate change, notes the website Vice, which also recalls the 15 million dollar cuts to the provincial fire management system decided the previous month.