Fort McMurray fire sent former Winnipegger fleeing on motorcycle

A former Winnipegger says she rode 10 hours on a motorcycle through smoke and traffic gridlock as she and her husband escaped from the massive wildfire in Fort McMurray, Alta.

Dutchess and Danno Sabovitch, who are in their 50s, made the trek over smoke-blanketed roads overnight, arriving in Edmonton around 7 a.m. MT Wednesday.

"It was like watching those Armageddon movies. It was ghastly," Dutchess Sabovitch told CBC News in an interview.

They were among about 88,000 people who have had to leave Fort McMurray and surrounding areas as the fire, which has destroyed several residential neighbourhoods, continues to burn. Tens of thousands of people fled the city, sometimes with flames roaring on both sides of the highway.

Sabovitch said she and her husband made the decision to leave by motorcycle after she had to wait two hours in line to buy a jerry can of gasoline at a Fort McMurray gas station — only to have her can stolen.

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While another person gave her a jerry can of gas after the theft, the couple did not have enough to get them to the next station in the area by car, she said.

"So he said, 'Well, we've certainly got enough for the motorcycle.' And I said, 'OK, motorcycle it is.'"

They packed three days worth of clothing, their computer hard drive, her wedding bracelet, their passports and boating licences in backpacks before they left, Sabovitch said.

As the Sabovitches left the city — Dutchess ​riding on the back and Danno driving — she said they came across dense traffic, wildfire smoke and destruction.

"All the trees along the side of the road, the highway, were on fire," she said.

"We went past the Super 8 with a Denny's in it — and we were the first customers Denny's had when it opened a year ago — and we went by there and it was an inferno. Like, nothing left of the hotel or the Denny's."

As well, she said the ditches along the highway south of Fort McMurray were littered with vehicles.

"There's cars in ditches everywhere [that] either ran out of gas or tried to skip through a ditch to get from one side to the other … and got stuck."

Her sister, Trudy Turner, said she worried about the couple all night.

"Because she's got allergies, I can't imagine what she was like on that ride, but they did make it to Edmonton safely, which is great. But it was really, really, very stressful," Turner said in an interview from Winnipeg.

Sabovitch agreed that it was difficult for her to breathe while moving through the fire zone on the back of a motorcycle.

"Going through the smoke, it was just acrid — first, wood smoke, as we're going through the forested area … and you could barely see, you could barely see," she said. "It was like nighttime and the sun was still up."

She added, "All of a sudden there was a huge explosion and you could just see a hunk of metal go flying of what we figure was maybe part of a propane tank. Yeah, it was noisy ... it was amazing."

Turner said her sister, who posted updates on Facebook and by text message, has kept upbeat during the ordeal.

"She's keeping her spirits up pretty good, because one of her posts was that the waitress said, you know, 'What would you like for breakfast?' and [she] said, 'Nothing smoked!'" Turner said with a chuckle.

"But aside from that … she texted me that she is exhausted and her butt's killing her from the motorcycle ride and they're just going to crash. They were up 25 hours straight to get this done."

Turner said her sister grew up in Winnipeg and has lived in Fort McMurray for about 10 years.

Sabovitch said she does not know what happened to her house, which is on the outskirts of the Timberlea area and backed into a forested area. At least 12 trailers in that neighbourhood were destroyed as of 4 a.m. MT Wednesday.