CALGARY, Alberta—Forest fires continued to rage in Canada's oil-rich province of Alberta on Thursday as a mandatory evacuation order for areas near the hub of the country's oil-sands industry widened and key transportation routes remained closed.
The fires and resulting evacuations, which have sent nearly 80,000 people to shelters hundreds of miles north and south of Fort McMurray, have crimped oil-sands production and threaten to weigh on the country's economic output.
Officials late Wednesday extended evacuation orders to a number of areas surrounding Fort McMurray, including a First Nations reserve south of the town. The wildfires have spread to the oil-sands hub's airport and several buildings near the main terminal have been destroyed, officials said. Flights in and out of the airport remain canceled and the main highway route through the town remains closed to the public.
More than 1,100 firefighters, 145 helicopters and 22 air tankers are helping fight the fires, which have grown nearly 10-fold to cover 210,000 acres, or about the size of Calgary, over the past day, officials said.
Conditions remain "extreme" with a total of 49 wildfires continuing to burn, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley said Thursday. Seven of those fires are described as "out of control," Ms. Notley added.
Cooler temperatures are expected to help control the fires on Thursday, but lower humidity and gusting winds of up to 25 miles an hour could complicate firefighters' efforts, officials said.
"We have a difficult road ahead with a lot of uncertainty as the fires continue to burn." But whatever roads faced, "we will face them together," Ms. Notley said during a news conference Thursday.
The fires have resulted in a reduction of around 500,000 barrels of crude-oil production a day, according to Charles St-Arnaud, North American economist at Nomura Securities. The crimped production is contributing to a jump in oil prices on Thursday to some of their highest levels of the year. Brent crude, the global benchmark, was recently up 2.3% at $ 45.66.
Mr. St-Arnaud said Canada's oil-sands producers account for about 2.4% of the country's economy, and the current stoppage in oil production reduces gross domestic product by about 0.12 percentage points for each week of reduced supply.
Economists at Bank of Nova Scotia said the wildfires raise the risk of "very little," if any, GDP growth occurring in Canada this quarter.
Several oil-sands producers, including Royal Dutch Shell PLC's Canadian unit, Suncor Energy Inc. and Husky Energy Inc. have reduced their crude production as a result of the wildfires. The oil-sands facilities aren't directly threatened by the uncontrolled forest fires, but mandatory evacuations of workers have affected some operations.
Canada's total oil-sands production is around 2 million barrels a day, much of which is exported to the U.S.
Canada Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said Thursday afternoon that the immediate priority is fighting the fires and keeping people safe. But he said the federal government is also beginning to work on its medium-term response to the fires, including income support for people who have lost their livelihoods, infrastructure requirements and housing and health issues. Ottawa will also look at calculating how much money it will provide as part of the federal government's disaster-assistance arrangement.
The fires, which started late Sunday, spread from a forested area southwest of Fort McMurray and crossed the Athabasca River bisecting the town Monday. They began to threaten residential neighborhoods by midday Tuesday, prompting evacuations.
Edmonton
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