This is a living document. It was first published on May 6th during a time when there was very little information available from other sources. The most recent update was at 2:30am on May 20th.

Steve Jones, mcmurraymap@gmail.com

May 20th update:

On May 18th, the Regional Municipality has now published the best available images and analysis. These were collected by an airplane (much higher resolution than satellite,) and also show each building from North, East, South, West and top-down perspectives. You can also create a damage report that will provide you with the Rapid Damage Assessment status. At this time, there is no longer any point in referring to my original maps below.

For those that are interested, there is some Digital Globe imagery here:

You can also find some maps here from Pierre Lardeux that put the burned areas of the town in the larger context of the overall fire.

May 13th update:

Global News has acquired some new imagery. These are high quality images — especially considering that they are from a satellite and not from an airplane. I haven’t had a chance to do a full side by side review to look for errors/updates in the maps. If you see any deviations, please let me know.

You can view these new images and download them here:

May 10th comments:

A few additional buildings were identified on Ward Crescent and one on Comeau Crescent. I have not updated the maps to show that.

May 9th afternoon comments:

The current estimate is now 2400 buildings. I would guess that number includes secondary buildings (garages.) 1600 seems like a reasonable estimate for primary buildings. If anyone can get clarity on that point it would be appreciated. At the end of the day, the number that will matter the most is displaced households and displaced businesses. A number of the buildings that were lost were multi-unit buildings.

May 9th update:

No new satellite images were made available but I have found a few likely errors in the previous analysis of the May 6th images and I apologize for that. When time allows, I may adjust the main post but for now the update is directly below. If this is your first time to this page, please read the preamble below this update. As always, please do not expect this analysis to be completely accurate and you can always view the source images at:

I think there are diminishing returns in performing further analysis at this point. We have received word that the RCMP is nearing completion of a damage inventory.

Media will also be allowed into the town on Monday and the Premier will be surveying damage herself. I expect that all property owners will be receiving definitive information shortly which will be more complete and accurate than estimates based on satellite images.

I sincerely hope that this analysis provided value in the past few days. The intention was to leverage publicly available information to provide a clearer (but not perfect) view of the situation in the municipality in the long days before official information could be made available.

There were a few important things that the satellite images have told us before the official damage assessments can be provided:

Some neighbourhoods clearly suffered a high amount of damage and it was hopefully useful to have that information sooner than later.

Some neighbourhoods were clearly saved. Such a large amount of the municipality was saved that it was important for people to know that any speculation that the town had been “wiped off the map” was completely misplaced.

May 9th changes: