Canadian officials to inspect town ravaged by wildfire

Lac La Biche (Alberta): Canadian officials on Monday planned to take their first look at the oil boom town ravaged by the nation's most destructive wildfire in recent memory as the blaze turned away from populated areas and cooler weather slowed its spread.
Alberta's premiere, Rachel Notley, was set to lead local officials and media on an inspection of oil sands boomtown Fort McMurray, whose 88,000 inhabitants barely had time to flee the blaze that broke out on May 1.
Notley warned the nation to brace for grim images, with entire neighborhoods destroyed, though the flames had moved far enough away from the town to make an inspection safe, officials said.
"The head of the fire is well away from the community. There's been some growth, but limited growth, and that's due to the change in weather," said wildfire information officer Matthew Anderson on CBC television.
Firefighters hoped that cooler, possibly rainy, weather would aid in the battle against the blaze.
Temperatures cooled on Monday, with a forecast high of 10C (50°F), down from Sunday's high of 17 C (63°F), with Environment Canada forecasting a 40 per cent chance of showers in Fort McMurray.
The cool weather was expected to linger through Thursday. Still, much of the province of Alberta in western Canada is tinder-box dry after a mild winter and warm spring.
Alberta's government said Monday the fire had consumed 161,000 hectares (395,000 acres), an estimate unchanged from Sunday. It had expanded to within 40 kilometers (25 miles) of the border of Saskatchewan, a province east of Alberta, but was not expected to cross into the neighbouring province, said Travis Fairweather, an Alberta wildlife information officer.
Officials said it was too early to know when the thousands of evacuees camped out in nearby towns could go back to Fort McMurray, even if their homes were intact.
The city's gas has been turned off, its power grid is damaged and the water is undrinkable.
Fort McMurray is the centre of Canada's oil sands region. About half of its crude output, or 1 million barrels per day, has been taken offline, according to a Reuters estimate.
US oil prices fell 1.8 per cent on Monday morning.
The inferno could become the costliest natural disaster in Canada's history. One analyst estimated insurance losses could exceed C$9 billion ($7 billion).
Nearly all of Fort McMurray's residents escaped the fire safely, although two people died in a car crash during the evacuation.
In a Sunday evening message, Fort McMurray fire chief Darby Allen sent condolences to the families of the two teenage cousins who died in the crash. One victim, 15-year-old Emily Ryan, was the daughter of a fireman in the city.