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The municipality ordered a mandatory evacuation of Centennial Park, areas south of Highway 69 including Prairie Creek and Gregoire. RCMP were going door-to-door, telling people to leave.

Local volunteers were setting up cots Sunday night at Fort McMurray’s McDonald Island Park Leisure Centre, Allen said. Given how isolated the northeastern Alberta city is, locals are prepared to handle these kinds of emergencies, Allen said: “We take care of our own.”

“We take care of our own.”

The blaze earlier prompted the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo to issue a voluntary evacuation alert for people in Gregoire with respiratory problems, the elderly and those with mobility issues. Mounties used bullhorns to tell people to leave a campground and provincial detox centre closer to the inferno.

Earlier in the evening, police also went door-to-door in the Beacon Hill neighbourhood, telling residents to be prepared to leave on short notice.

Bo Luft walked toward his daughter’s home on Beacon Hill Drive to help her pack Sunday night. Her husband was also on his way home from work.

“I can see it’s getting worse and not getting better,” he said.

Lester Deep and Phyllis Kelly, two other Beacon Hill residents, were also prepared to go. They said they weren’t worried about the flames.

Deep and Kelly, who have lived on the street for more than 30 years, said they’ve seen worse. Deep, 75, said he remembers a fire in the 1950s that was so severe, the Canadian Forces were called up to help extinguish the blaze.

“The smoke was so thick, around 3 p.m. you would think it was 10 p.m. because you couldn’t see anything in the valley,” he said of the long-ago inferno.

Alberta Agriculture and Forestry spokewoman Laura Stewart was hoping cool night temperatures would help firefighters contain Sunday’s blaze. The forecast high for Fort McMurray Sunday was 27 C.

Earlier Sunday, a second fire north of Fort McMurray was straddling city limits, said Jody Butz, assistant deputy chief of operations for the municipality. Although it had been close to homes, the fire was subsiding and under control by 8:15 p.m., according to Wood Buffalo RCMP.

Eighteen provincial firefighters were helping to fight that fire, Stewart said.

The fire also temporarily shut down one lane of Highway 63 Sunday.

The fires came one day after the province raised the forest fire risk level in Fort McMurray from low to very high. This is the fourth wildfire in the Fort McMurray area since Friday afternoon.

With files from Stephanie Jellett and Olivia Condon