Wildfire in Alberta disrupts oil operations and prompts evacuations

A wildfire in the Canadian province of Alberta prompted the temporary shutdown of some oil and gas production and forced residents of a small town to evacuate.

The blaze, which Alberta Wildfire said is approximately 1,600 hectares in size, is burning out of control about 7 km north of the town of Swan Hills in the northern part of the province.

Oil-and-gas producer Aspenleaf Energy, which has wells in the area, evacuated its local field staff and temporarily halted operations, shutting in approximately 4,000 barrels-of-oil-equivalent per day of production. 

CEO Bryan Gould said in an interview the fire was about 10 km from Aspenleaf's facilities Monday evening, adding the company's decision to shut in production was made out of an abundance of caution.

Canadian Natural Resources, Canada's largest oil-and-gas producer, also has operations in the Swan Hills area. The company has not responded to a request for comment.

The approximately 1,200 residents of the town of Swan Hills were ordered to evacuate on Monday evening. Evacuees were directed to a reception centre in the nearby town of Whitecourt, approximately a 50-minute drive to the south.

Another smaller wildfire, approximately 390 hectares in size, is burning out of control in Yellowhead County, in western Alberta.

The blazes are Alberta's first significant fires this spring, following a 2024 wildfire season that was one of the most destructive on record, largely due to the devastation caused by a blaze that ripped through Jasper, a tourist town in the Canadian Rockies.

Wildfires have hit oil and gas production in Canada several times in the past decade. Last year, Suncor Energy, Canada's second-largest oil sands producer, temporarily curtailed production at its Firebag complex due to a nearby blaze.

In May of 2023, companies shut in at least 319,000 boepd, or 3.7% of Canada's total production, as more than 100 wildfires burned in Alberta.

In 2016, thousands of oil sands workers were evacuated as a monster wildfire destroyed part of the community of Fort McMurray, forcing companies to reduce their oil output by a million barrels per day.