The Globe and Mail reports in its Friday edition that Suncor Energy has shut down its 215,000-barrel-a-day Firebag oil sands site in Northern Alberta as a precaution owing to a wildfire about eight kilometres away. A Reuters dispatch to The Globe says that Suncor said it was keeping only essential workers at the facility, which lies roughly 100 kilometres northeast of the oil sands hub of Fort McMurray. The company declined to comment on whether Firebag production had been affected. "An emergency-response team is monitoring the situation closely and prepared to take further action if necessary," Suncor said in a statement. "There is no risk to our other operations or the Firebag airport at this time." Alberta's Minister of Forestry and Parks, Todd Loewen, said Firebag had been shut down on Wednesday night out of caution. There are more than 60 fires across Alberta and officials have rated the danger in the province's north as very high to extreme. Weather forecasts show an extended period of hot weather will settle over Western Canada in the coming days, with temperatures expected to exceed 30 C by next week. More than two-thirds of Canada's five million barrels per day of crude comes from Alberta's oil sands.