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Alberta

Drayton Valley residents returning home as evacuation order is lifted

Published

2 years ago

4 minute read

Update 13: Alberta wildfire situation (May 16, 5:30 p.m.)

The evacuation order has been lifted for the Town of Drayton Valley and parts of Brazeau County. Re-entry began at 2 p.m.

Those evacuated due to wildfires should register at local reception centres or at emergencyregistration.alberta.ca.

Current situation

  • Alberta has declared a provincial state of emergency. Visit alberta.ca/emergency for information or call 310-4455, now available 24-7.
  • The fire danger is extreme in northern Alberta with temperatures expected to increase again toward the end of this week. A moderate to high fire rating remains for the Rockies.
  • Current wildfire information is available on the Alberta Wildfire Status Dashboard.
  • A fire ban and an off-highway vehicle restriction are in place across the Forest Protection Area.
  • Parts of Alberta are experiencing moderate to high-risk smoky conditions.
    • Learn more about the potential affects of wildfire smoke on your health.
    • Wildfire smoke can travel long distances.
    • Visit firesmoke.ca to see where the smoke affecting your area is coming from.
  • Evacuation orders: 23
  • Alberta Emergency Alerts: 17 (12 critical alerts, five advisories)
  • Number of evacuees: 19,576
  • Alberta currently has more than 2,500 wildland firefighters, including personnel from partner agencies across Canada and the United States as well as the Canadian Armed Forces, 165 helicopters, 31 fixed-wing aircraft, and heavy equipment responding to wildfires in the province.
  • An additional 61 personnel are arriving today from Ontario, with 21 expected to arrive from New Brunswick tomorrow.

New information

  • A mandatory evacuation order was issued for the town of Swan Hills at 1:15 p.m.
  • The evacuation order has been lifted for the town of Drayton Valley and parts of Brazeau County.
  • Re-entry operations for the town of Drayton Valley began at 2 p.m. today.
  • Local municipalities, First Nations and Metis Settlements may require financial assistance to compensate volunteer firefighters who may not be able to leave their regular jobs in order to join or continue firefighting efforts. Alberta’s government is providing additional support for local firefighting costs to help strengthen the province’s response capacity, improve public safety and assist communities during an unprecedented wildfire season.

Support for evacuees

  • Since the announcement of one-time emergency financial assistance for evacuees, more than 10,400 applications have been processed.
  • More than $15.8 million in e-transfers has been sent to evacuees.
  • More than $3.3 million in debit cards has been distributed.
  • Debit cards are available for evacuees unable to receive an e-transfer at 16 Alberta Supports Centre locations with extended hours and at Edmonton and Calgary evacuation centres.

Donations

  • Albertans who wish to help can make cash donations through the Canadian Red Cross or within their regions to a recognized charitable organization of their choice.
  • The Government of Canada and the Government of Alberta will each match every dollar donated to the Canadian Red Cross 2023 Alberta Fires Appeal. This means that every $1 donated will become $3 to support those affected by the wildfires.
  • Individuals and companies with goods or services to offer or donate to support the government’s response to the wildfire can email [email protected].ca.

For more information on the emergency and supports for evacuees, go to alberta.ca/emergency.

Related Topics:

This is a news release from the Government of Alberta.

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Temporary Alberta grid limit unlikely to dampen data centre investment, analyst says

Published on July 14, 2025

By

From the Canadian Energy Centre

By Cody Ciona

‘Alberta has never seen this level and volume of load connection requests’

Billions of investment in new data centres is still expected in Alberta despite the province’s electric system operator placing a temporary limit on new large-load grid connections, said Carson Kearl, lead data centre analyst for Enverus Intelligence Research.

Kearl cited NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang’s estimate from earlier this year that building a one-gigawatt data centre costs between US$60 billion and US$80 billion.

That implies the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO)’s 1.2 gigawatt temporary limit would still allow for up to C$130 billion of investment.

“It’s got the potential to be extremely impactful to the Alberta power sector and economy,” Kearl said.

Importantly, data centre operators can potentially get around the temporary limit by ‘bringing their own power’ rather than drawing electricity from the existing grid.

In Alberta’s deregulated electricity market – the only one in Canada – large energy consumers like data centres can build the power supply they need by entering project agreements directly with electricity producers.

According to the AESO, there are 30 proposed data centre projects across the province.

The total requested power load for these projects is more than 16 gigawatts, roughly four gigawatts more than Alberta’s demand record in January 2024 during a severe cold snap.

For comparison, Edmonton’s load is around 1.4 gigawatts, the AESO said.

“Alberta has never seen this level and volume of load connection requests,” CEO Aaron Engen said in a statement.

“Because connecting all large loads seeking access would impair grid reliability, we established a limit that preserves system integrity while enabling timely data centre development in Alberta.”

As data centre projects come to the province, so do jobs and other economic benefits.

“You have all of the construction staff associated; electricians, engineers, plumbers, and HVAC people for all the cooling tech that are continuously working on a multi-year time horizon. In the construction phase there’s a lot of spend, and that is just generally good for the ecosystem,” said Kearl.

Investment in local power infrastructure also has long-term job implications for maintenance and upgrades, he said.

“Alberta is a really exciting place when it comes to building data centers,” said Beacon AI CEO Josh Schertzer on a recent ARC Energy Ideas podcast.

“It has really great access to natural gas, it does have some excess grid capacity that can be used in the short term, it’s got a great workforce, and it’s very business-friendly.”

The unaltered reproduction of this content is free of charge with attribution to the Canadian Energy Centre.

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Published on July 14, 2025

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A new video from the Alberta Next panel looks at whether Alberta should stop relying on Ottawa to collect our provincial income taxes. Quebec already does it, and Alberta already collects corporate taxes directly. Doing the same for personal income taxes could mean better tax policy, thousands of new jobs, and less federal interference. But it would take time, cost money, and require building new systems from the ground up.

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