Not in their wildest imaginings could Erika Cook and husband Adam have pictured how many ways a baby monitor could be used other than to safeguard their four-month-old daughter, Klara.

After fleeing the Fort McMurray home they purchased just a month ago, joining the exodus from the city forced by a catastrophic wildfire this week, the Cooks made it to an oil company work camp.

There, days after fleeing, Erika used her smartphone to connect to her home’s Internet-connected baby monitor. She was astonished to see it still standing.

But she had other emotions as well.

“I feel I can’t be happy for that because so many of my friends have lost their homes,” the lifelong Fort Mac resident told the Star’s Michael Robinson. “And my hometown has burned to the ground.”

Five hours later, the Cooks arrived at Fort McKay First Nation along the Athabasca River. There was no room for them at the house of a friend of a friend, so they ditched their truck, loaded the dogs into the van and continued trekking north as the sun began to set.

“All of the camps were filling up at this point,” she said until they arrived at Firebag, a mining camp facility operated by Suncor northeast of the city. There, Adam’s father and Klara’s grandfather, Kenny Cook, welcomed the family with open arms. It was the first time Kenny, a worker at the mine, met his granddaughter.

This week, Canadians who had never been close to the northern Alberta oilsands city became acquainted with it in the most intimate ways — from the video of James O’Reilly’s living room, and his two clownfish, going up in flames, to the birth of little Tenley FitzGerald, whose parents, Dan and Lindsay, stepped from a hospital with their new daughter into a city ablaze.

On Friday, as Fort McMurray settled in for a long recovery from the wildfire that hit Tuesday and forced the evacuation of the entire city, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley announced her government would provide debit cards to the more than 80,000 evacuees for immediate expenses — $1,250 per adult and $500 for each dependent — at a total cost of about $100 million.

Meanwhile, the Canadian Red Cross said that by Friday morning $30 million (not including matching federal funds promised by the Trudeau government) had been donated by people across the country.

Active fires in Fort McMurray

Red Cross president Conrad Sauvé called the response an unprecedented “Canadian moment.”

Even environmental groups — no great boosters of the Alberta oilsands development on which Fort McMurray prospered — have urged their supporters to send aid.

“It’s sort of like being against the war while supporting the troops,” said Mark Meisner, Canadian executive-director of the International Environmental Communications Association.

In news almost too cruel to be true, it was reported that the 15-year-old daughter of deputy fire chief Cranley Ryan was one of two people killed Wednesday in a car crash on an evacuation route.

Emily Ryan, a triplet, and a cousin with whom she was travelling, died at the scene. Ryan, deputy chief in Saprae Creek near Fort McMurray, was relieved of active duty to be with his family.

Emotional extremes seemed the way of things in Fort McMurray, every story of destruction and loss matched by one to replenish the spirit.

James O’Reilly fled his home Tuesday as the blaze hit the city, drove to safety in his truck, then sat, took out his phone, and watched flames devour his living room from images captured on security camera.

The speed and power was devastating.

At first, smoke and flickering can be seen through a window. Flames suddenly mushroom and melt the window. Smoke floods the room until nothing can be seen, and O’Reilly’s loss — including two clownfish in their tank — was inevitable.

He told Edmonton Metro he felt bad about the fish, but was grateful. “We made it through. And we have our camper. So we have a home on the road.”

On May 2, Tenley FitzGerald was born weighing 6 lbs., 11 oz. The next day, she left hospital. On her third day on the planet, she became a fire evacuee.

Coming home to find flames threatening their area of town, Dan and Lindsay fled Fort McMurray with Tenley and not much else in the way of belongings, except their dog, Bentley. After a marathon drive, they reached safety in Athabasca, Alta.

“She’s great,” Lindsay FitzGerald, a special education teacher from Strathroy, Ont., told CBC Radio. “We’re very blessed. She’s healthy and keeping us sane and helping us get through.”

Even as the fire grew to more than 1,000 square km, Notley reported the downtown remained intact and critical infrastructure such as the hospital was undamaged.

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With winds shifting to the northeast and expected to push the fire out of town, Mayor Melissa Blake saw positives among the ruins.

“I am absolutely overwhelmed by what we’ve received” from across Canada and around the world, she said.

Still, a catastrophe that some dubbed “Canada’s New Orleans” will have consequences for Fort McMurray and the country for years to come.

On Friday, some displaced Fort McMurray residents got a drive-by glimpse of their city — gutted motel, flattened gas station, charred concrete — as a convoy moved some of those who’d fled north to safer ground south of the city.

“The city of Fort McMurray is not safe to return to and this will be true for a significant period of time,” Notley said.

Horrified by images that emerged all week, Canadians continued to send aid Friday, in amounts and gestures large and small.

Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall said his province would provide $250,000 to the Red Cross. Ontario Liquor Control Board outlets offered to accept relief donations at all tills. An anonymous donor at a pancake breakfast in Edmonton (an event that raised $100,000) reportedly dropped off a $15,000 cheque Friday for evacuees.

And, knowing the consolations of music, the Edmonton Symphony played a concert for Fort Mac refugees.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he will visit Fort Mac soon, but not while first responders remained engaged in the monumental battle.

Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said Friday there was simply no short-term solution to the crisis. Defeating the “absolute beast of a fire” remained work in difficult progress, and recovery was a years-long proposition.

From Parliament Hill to the most remote parts of Canada, people sent sympathies, support and assurances that Fort McMurray residents will not contend with that alone.

On Cape Breton Island, at Dominion Beach, someone had etched a message in the sand.

“FORT MAC <3 FROM C.B.

In blessed silence, it spoke for a nation.

With files from The Canadian Press, Edmonton Metro, CBC Radio and Global Edmonton

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