WINNIPEG — He drove all night to get to safety. Tyler McLeod is just one of 88,000 evacuees who have fled Fort McMurray as the city burns.
A mandatory evacuation went into effect for the entire city around 7 p.m. Tuesday.
READ MORE: Live updates of Fort McMurray wildfires
McLeod and his roommate grabbed what they could and left.
“Cars started going down with mega phones telling people to evacuate,” said McLeod, from his brother’s home in Edmonton.
“Heading through the city was crazy. You were hearing propane tanks blowing up from barbeques and gas stations blowing up.”
Traffic was gridlocked for hours, as people rushed to escape on the only highway out of the town. A gas shortage is also becoming a growing concern.
“For probably 40 miles its just endless people parked on the side of the road, they were out of gas and it was as far as they could get,” he said. “This morning it’s still the same thing…bumper to bumper for three hours outside of Fort Mac.”
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READ MORE: Photos of the Fort McMurray wildfire through the eyes of evacuees
Officials have said 80 per cent of homes in the Beacon Hill neighbourhood have been destroyed and there are serious losses being reported in a few other communities. As of Wednesday afternoon, there have been no reported injuries.
“All of a sudden we see an entire neighbourhood on fire and the fire is right at the side of the highway,” said Winnipegger Joshua Sleigh. “It looked like a scene out of a movie or a video game.”
Sleigh works in the area and had just been finishing a 14-day rotation. He was suppose to fly out Tuesday night but instead was rerouted out of town on a bus along with thousands of other people.
“The crazy thing is you saw cops and firefighters just on the side of the road waving traffic through while fire is right beside them,” he recounted. “It’s crazy. I’ve never seen anything like that.”
WATCH: Fort McMurray wildfire inferno destroys city
Some of the evacuees who spent all Tuesday night driving to Edmonton were able to catch a flight to Manitoba Wednesday afternoon.
“It’s surreal,” said Jason St. Pierre. “You look at a bonfire and it’s small and you look at these trees that are 20 foot tall on fire. It’s sad to see.”
St. Pierre had only arrived in town on Sunday for a work trip and was staying at one of the hotels that was eventually evacuated.
“One side of the road was a hill on fire the other side was downtown,” he said. It took more than eight hours for St. Pierre to finally arrive to safety in Edmonton. “It was kind of crazy.”
While crews continue to battle the blaze, fire officials believe it will only get worse Wednesday as wind speeds pick up.
At this time no crews from Winnipeg or Manitoba have been deployed, but fire officials have said they are on standby if needed.
WATCH: ‘It’s a tough community’: Tyler McLeod describes the people of Fort McMurray
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