Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he'll visit Fort McMurray, but a prime ministerial trip while firefighters are trying to contain the blaze would not be helpful.

Trudeau told reporters in Toronto Friday morning that he wants to visit in the next few weeks, but now his focus is on ensuring Ottawa plays its part.

"I think we’re all aware that a prime minister showing up in Fort McMurray when firefighters are busy trying to contain a massive, raging wildfire is not a particularly helpful thing," Trudeau said in response to a question about when he'd go see the damage.

"The best thing I can do right now is make sure that our operations centre and indeed the lines of communication with the folks on the ground and the folks in Alberta are as robust, instant and effective as possible."

Any prime ministerial travel involves complicated logistics and multiple staff, including an RCMP detail, that can take resources away from communities that would rather put them elsewhere during an emergency. 

It's also a sensitive location in which to hold a political photo op. Last summer, only days before the federal election kicked off, a journalist in British Columbia mocked then-prime minister Stephen Harper for calling journalists to a media event where he posed in front of exhausted firefighters, who had been battling a blaze near Kelowna. In a story headlined, "Man in blue suit thanks firefighters," the Kamloops, B.C. reporter noted the firefighting efforts acted as little more than a backdrop.

Fort McMurray's 80,000 residents have been evacuated from the city, with the nearby communities of Anzac, Gregoire Lake Estates and Fort McMurray First Nation also under evacuation orders, . As of that update, 40 fires were still burning in the area, with more than 1,200 firefighters, 110 helicopters, 295 pieces of heavy equipment and 27 air tankers fighting them.

Trudeau says he is certain he'll travel to Fort McMurray in the next few weeks " to understand and share with Canadians the scale and the scope of the devastation that struck this community."

"I can’t say I look forward to it because just the pictures are troubling enough, but I know that it is going to be extremely important that I get out there," he said.