About 5,000 people remained out from their homes Tuesday as wildfires continued to burn in north-central Alberta.

The evacuees included people from Wabasca, the Bigstone Cree First Nation and two municipal districts in a rural area north of Edmonton.

Reeve Murray Kerik of the Municipal District of Lesser Slave River, which was under a local state of emergency, said the weather will help determine when people will be able to return home.

"A lot will depend on the fire behaviour this afternoon," Kerik said . "The hottest and the worst part of the day is between 3 to 5 o'clock, when we get the most heat built up and we have the winds come up.

"We will move them back as soon as we can, but we don't want to risk human life."

The MD of Opportunity and the Bigstone reserve were also under states of local emergency, which allow local authorities to order evacuations and control travel in affected areas.

There were 65 fires burning in the province; 19 were considered to be out of control.

One fire in the Cold Lake area was about 100 square kilometres in size, while another near Slave Lake was about five square kilometres.

Wildfire officer Geoffrey Driscoll said lightning overnight Monday started many of the fires.

He said the fires were not growing, but that could change depending on the temperature, wind and humidity.

"We don't know what the day is going to bring," Driscoll said.

"Quite likely, we're going to get some more lightning tonight. And we're going to hope that it comes with some rain but likely it's not going to come with enough to make a difference."

Alberta had more than 630 firefighters and 70 helicopters working directly on the wildfires. They were being supported by fire crews from Ontario and water bombers from Quebec.

The wildfires also forced more evacuations from oilsands sites.

Statoil Canada said Tuesday that it was voluntarily removing non-essential staff from its Leismer project south of Fort McMurray. Company spokesman Peter Symons said Leismer continues to produce oil, but only about 30 of the project's 185 workers remain at the site.

MEG Energy was also getting non-essential staff and contractors away from its Christina Lake facilities.

Projects operated by Cenovus Energy and Canadian Natural Resources were earlier shut down as a safety precaution.

The government issued a provincewide fire ban on Monday due to extremely hot and dry conditions, the first since 2011.