Bright red hoses, thicker than a thigh, snake along the highways near Fort McMurray, studded with cannons that can blast enough water into fire-threatened ditches to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool every 90 minutes.
The soakers help protect buildings, homes and vital routes into and out of the Alberta city against wildfire flames that have forced the evacuation of four neighbourhoods.
They're just one of the lessons learned after the catastrophic wildfire that scorched the oilsands hub in 2016.
David Warwick, a resident of one of the evacuated neighbourhoods, says it feels as if the emergency crews are definitely better prepared to tackle the situation this time around.
Still, 66-hundred evacuated residents are likely to remain out of their homes until at least Tuesday while the rest of the city remains under evacuation alert.
The fire moved to within five kilometres of the main southern route out of the municipality and had grown to 210 square kilometres.
Other fires across Western Canada have forced residents out of their homes.
In northeastern British Columbia, a widening area remains under an evacuation order around Fort Nelson, a town of 47-hundred.
And in Manitoba, about 500 people remained out of the remote northwestern community of Cranberry Portage.