[Allen:] In Canada, an official says Alberta's most threatening wildfire could double in size in the coming hours. Emergency crews worked all day on Friday to evacuate thousands of people to the provincial capital, Edmonton. If conditions are safe, a convoy will start up again in just a few hours to help thousands more people escape the flames. The fire has scorched more than 1,000 square kilometers and distraught residents are trying to come to terms with their staggering losses. Our Dan Simon is there.
[Dan Simon, Cnn Correspondent:] Flames and smoke filling the sky as a convoy of desperate residents flee the danger zone.
[Simon:] What have these last few days been like?
[Unidentified Female:] Hell on Earth. Just like hell.
[Simon:] And the scenes are hellish. The fire that started five days ago is still out of control. And for the displaced, it's gone from bad to worse. Because food and water is running low, Canadian authorities moving some 25,000 people from camps, a double evacuation. What was it like being in the camp?
[Unidentified Female:] Hard. They rationed food. Low water. People were upset because they don't know what's going on.
[Simon:] The fire has burned nearly 250,000 acres, more than 10 times the size of Manhattan. In one of the more remarkable surveillance videos ever captured, a homeowner could watching his own house go down in flames only 20 minutes after evacuating. Sixteen hundred structures, including homes and businesses destroyed. The heaviest damage in Ft. McMurray. A resident films his burned out neighborhood after seeing it for the first time.
[Unidentified Male:] This is my house. It was my house. Ashes are cool now. Nothing left. It's gone.
[Unidentified Female:] Oh, my God. Our house is going to burn down.
[Simon:] In another video, we hear a woman's desperation as she drives by the flames destroying her community. As weary residents leave the area, they are greeted by fuel trucks with gas stations either destroyed or down due to power outages. Fuel is a precious commodity.
[Unidentified Male:] Makes a guy feel good to actually help these people because they've been through so much loss and so much devastation lately.
[Allen:] Always to see Good Samaritans stepping in. You know, Derek Van Dam's here with us now. We've seen the video. But that woman right there, crying from her car, that's just an audio a very powerful little clip of what they're dealing with
[Derek Van Dam, Ams Meteorologist:] the pictures, they speak 1,000 words. We just keep going back to that dashcam footage of the embers and the ashes falling from sky as that convoy of cars tries to leave Fort McMurray. That is really compelling visual and the stories are harrowing coming out of that area, communities coming together to try and help each other evacuate as quickly as possible. Really, our hearts go out to those people. Hey, I got a question for you, Natalie, to try and put this into perspective. Have you ever been to Rome?
[Allen:] I have not.
[Van Dam:] OK. Well, I've been there; it's a very large place. A lot of our viewers are from Rome or have traveled there. And the size of the Fort McMurray fire, as it stands right now, is roughly the same size as Rome. It's huge 25 percent bigger than New York City. It's even bigger than Hong Kong. And these are just massive wildfires out of control. And it doesn't appear that it's going to get any better at least for the next 24 hours. We do have some relief in sight for the end of the weekend. More on that in just one moment. Large area of smoke still battering parts of the United States. In fact, this has been seen from a NASA Modus satellite image. We'll bring up this a little bit closer for you so you can see it. Natalie, you may have noticed a bit of a haze over the skies today in Atlanta. That's actually the smoke that caught in the jet stream, all the way from Alberta, Canada, right into the southeastern United States.
[Allen:] Yes, and it brought our Canadian cool weather here, too.
[Van Dam:] Yes, it sure did and it brought a nice sunset as well.
[Allen:] All right, Derek, thank you. We want to turn now to Venezuela. Of course the people there have been hurting; the economic crisis there is getting worse. The country is a major oil producer and has been suffering all the more from declining oil prices. The opposition is trying to remove President Nicolas Maduro. Rolling blackouts are making life in Venezuela even more miserable. Our Paula Newton reports from west of Caracas.
[Paula Newton, Cnn Correspondent:] For months now in Venezuela they've been rationing basics. People line up for hours just for food. Hospitals are rationing medicines and supplies and now everywhere, except in the capital Caracas, the energy superpower is rationing electricity, too. We travelled to the industrial heartland in the city of Valencia, where scheduled blackouts are the new reality. From bakeries to small businesses to families, no one is escaping a daily dose of power rationing. Julio Perez walks us through his blacked-out bakery. Every day for at least four hours, the power is cut, he complains, and his business takes a hit. "Besides not having supplies," he tells me, "now I have to deal with the power rationing." He says the already precious products he has are at risk of spoiling. He can't make coffee for customers, can't tell them when he will have bread. "It's the same for salon owner, Alison Vandez, no power. No customers." City counselor Manuel Molina walks us through what was a busy business area, now nearly shuttered.
[Newton:] What's the situation right now in Valencia? How critical is it? "The situation in our country and our city is critical right now," he's explaining. "We have seen 30 percent of our businesses close." Molina blames the government mismanagement for the crisis but the Venezuelan government calls this a natural disaster. El Nino, it says, has deprived the Guri Dam of water and it produces most of Venezuela's electricity. Gladys Ocai isn't buying any of it. "My blender is broken. My refrigerator is broken," and she walks me over to show me. "I have meat in here and, you can imagine, this goes bad. I have to keep it closed." "El Nino" she says, "forget El Nino." She, too, blames the government. No matter who is to blame, there is no quick solution and it's taking a toll on communities and families. The Ocais never thought life could get tougher. Now every day when the lights go out, they know it will Paula Newton, CNN, Valencia, Venezuela.
[Allen:] Well, back in the U.S., West Virginia residents hope U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump can make their state great again. Coal production in this mining state has been plunging. And as CNN's Martin Savidge reports, many West Virginians hope the presumptive Republican nominee can turn things around.
[Martin Savidge, Cnn Correspondent:] At Big Daddy's off highway 50 outside Grafton, it's open mike night. And they're singing the blues. It's no secret Donald Trump is the favorite here. During a break, John Haddix tells me why.
[John Haddix, Retired Aircraft Mechanic:] I think he can change things. I think he can make things better for our town, for our state.
[Savidge:] Look around the clock. It's a microcosm of West Virginia. Overwhelmingly white, mostly older, less college educated and earning less than the rest of the country.
[Scott Crisholwo, Political Science Expert, West Virginia Univ:] We fit Donald Trump's demographics to a T. And in terms of his message, his message is about turning back to a greater America. And a lot of West Virginians do feel like they haven't gotten a fair shake.
[Savidge:] It's all about coal. West Virginia coal helped to make America great the first time.
[Diana Bartley, Business Owner:] Because our coal is what fire manufacturers. It's what lights up our cities.
[Savidge:] That business is...
[Bartley:] It's decimated.
[Savidge:] Concerns over climate change have the EPA cracking down on coal's use. As a result, according to a study by West Virginia University, coal production here has plummeted by more than one-third in just seven years, with some counties seeing job losses of 25 percent to 33 percent in just the last three to four years. The latest state economic numbers show West Virginia back in recession. No wonder Trump's promise for a return to past greatness means so much here.
[Tony Ujhelyi, Donald Trump Supporter:] We always were a powerful nation in the world. We need to be and we need to be a leader in the world.
[Savidge:] Coal's decline not just changed lives. It's changed politics. Time was West Virginia's coal fields were some of the most consistently Democratic voting areas in the country. In 1992, Bill Clinton won the state with 48 percent of the vote. In '96, 51 percent. Twenty years later, campaigning in the state for his wife, this is what Bill Clinton got Many here blame the party they once loved for turning its back on coal. And when Hillary Clinton outlined her clean energy policy on CNN, well, this is the only part many people in West Virginia heard.
[Hillary Clinton , Presidential Candidate:] We're going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.
[Savidge:] Clinton has since said her comments were taken out of context but the damage was done.
[Haddix:] When you come out and say you're going to close the coal mines, it's not been received too well.
[Savidge:] These days in West Virginia, there are two kinds of trains, coal trains and the Trump train. And for the latter, it's all aboard because, in this state, they're tired of the blues.
[Allen:] Well, finally bad news for fans of Boaty McBoatface. That name was selected over thousands of other choices in an online vote to name this new British research vessel. It earned more than 120,000 votes last month but now the U.K.'s Natural Environment Research Council has rejected the name, instead opting to name the ship after Sir David Attenborough, a legendary British broadcaster who inspired a love of nature. So much for Boaty McBoatface. Thanks for watching. I'm Natalie Allen. We've got much more on the U.S. presidential election right ahead with "POLITICAL MANN" and your top stories.