Region Archives: Canada East

Several Quebec communities were told to prepare for evacuations on Wednesday, as the province’s forests minister warned that firefighters were on the verge of losing control of dozens of fires that were previously contained. Maïté Blanchette Vézina told reporters that hot and dry conditions were fuelling the fires in many parts of the province, allowing some that were considered contained to regain strength. “What we announced, and what will probably happen in the next days, is that fires that were contained — we’re talking about 40 contained fires — could go out of control,” she said. Blanchette Vézina said the greatest areas of concern were the Lac-St-Jean region north of Quebec City; northern Quebec; and the Abitibi region in the northwest. She said a fire that came within 500 metres of Normétal, northwest of Montreal, was among those that were out of control, although the flames were spreading west toward the Ontario border, away from the community.

A fly-in First Nation on Ontario’s James Bay Coast was forced to quickly evacuate Wednesday afternoon with a fast-spreading forest fire less than two kilometres away.  What started as a small wildfire around noon was whipped up by the wind and within hours had people in Fort Albany watching walls of flame move swiftly toward their isolated community of 700.  “We’re declaring a state of emergency and we’re going to be evacuating starting right now,” Fort Albany Chief Elizabeth Kataquapit said in a Facebook video post.  “So get ready. Get your kids ready. Keep them in the home and pack everything, whatever you need while we go and figure everything out.” By Wednesday night, she was urging people to get onto evacuation planes bound for Moosonee.  Dozens of other people were picked up by boats that crossed the Albany River from the neighbouring community of Kashechewan.

There were 51 active forest fires in Ontario, including 20 in the northeast Monday afternoon, according to the Ministry of Forestry and Natural Resources. “So after a relatively slow start to the fire season in Ontario, the past few weeks are seeing a significant number of new starts,” said Isabelle Chenard, a fire information officer for the northeast, with the province’s Aviation, Forest Fire and Emergency Services. So far this year there have been 276 forest fires across northern Ontario, which have burned 110,000 hectares. During the same period last year there were 87 fires, which burned 2,382 hectares. But Chenard said last year’s fire season was relatively mild, and the 10-year average for this time of year is 203 fires and 73,000 hectares burned. With hot and dry weather in the forecast, fire bans remain in effect across most provincial parks in Ontario.

QUEBEC – Officials say firefighters are still struggling to control wildfires in two Quebec regions as the situation has improved in the rest of the province. As of Thursday afternoon, there were over 100 active fires in the southern half of the province and another 20 in the far north. The province’s forest fire prevention agency — SOPFEU — classified 26 of the southern fires as out of control. SOPFEU official Sylvain Tremblay told a press conference that rainfall hasn’t been sufficient to halt the progression of fires in the northern and western parts of the province. Fire officials are concerned about the behaviour of wildfires in those two regions as firefighters try to maintain what progress they have made.

HALIFAX – All of Nova Scotia’s wildfires are now under control, more than two weeks after an unprecedented string of fires broke out in the southwestern corner of the province and in the Halifax area.  The provincial government has announced that the huge Barrington Lake wildfire in Shelburne County, which started May 27, is finally under control — the last of the wildfires to be tamed.  That fire grew to more than 235 square kilometres, the largest recorded in the province’s history.  The fire forced more than 6,000 people from their homes and destroyed 60 houses and cottages, as well as 150 other structures.  Firefighters from the province’s Natural Resources Department, the Department of National Defence, Newfoundland and Labrador and the United States are still on the scene to extinguish hot spots.

MONTREAL – Rain in the forecast and the pending arrival of dozens of foreign firefighters raised hopes that Quebec’s more than 7,000 fire evacuees would be able to return home in the coming days, the province’s public security minister said Tuesday. François Bonnardel told reporters that rain showers and cooler temperatures were expected to move into northwestern Quebec, where powerful forest fires have threatened the towns of Lebel-sur-Quévillon and Normétal. The rain should provide some relief to firefighters over the next three or four days — and hopefully bring good news for displaced residents eager to return home, Bonnardel said. “People want a little hope,” he told reporters Tuesday in Montreal. “I’m going to try to give them some by telling them that with the weather forecasts for the next hours, we should be able to give you good news in the next 24, 48 hours.”

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry is currently fighting or monitoring three dozen active forest fires across Northwestern Ontario. Nine of these fires were discovered Sunday, including a 37-hectare blaze about 16 kilometres west of Ogoki Lake. It’s the largest of the new blazes, and is not under control. Other outbreaks discovered in the Dryden, Sioux Lookout, Nipigon and Red Lake districts range in size from 0.1 hectare to six hectares. The ministry on Sunday also updated its fire summary for Saturday, saying it had discovered four additional fires on Saturday evening. The largest was an eight-hectare outbreak in the Red Lake district. …The current fire danger rating across the Northwest is mostly high.

Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources says there are 68 wildfires burning across the north of the province. A spokesperson says 26 of those fires are not under control, 18 are under control, 16 are being observed, and eight are being held. Since Sunday, 14 new fires were discovered and eight were extinguished. The ministry says there is heavy smoke across northeastern Ontario due to fires both in the province and in Quebec, with the smoke travelling as far north as Timmins and south past Sudbury and Parry Sound. Most of northern Ontario is under a high or extreme risk of wildfires. Ontario Premier Doug Ford has urged people in every region of the province not to light camp fires.

Thousands of residents from Chibougamau, Que., and other municipalities started making their way home Monday morning after having been forced to leave due several forest fires raging in the province. During a news conference Monday morning, Premier François Legault said residents would soon begin to return to Lac-Barrière, Oujé-Bougoumou, Waswanipi, Obedjuwan and Lac-Simon. The premier says there will be fewer than 4,000 displaced people left by the end of the day, mostly residents from Normétal, Lebel-sur-Quévillon, Beaucanton, Val-Paradis and Saint-Lambert.  Chibougamau Mayor Manon Cyr says she feels relieved. 

Gerald Cheng

Mother Nature may offer a brief reprieve to smoky conditions in some areas out west this week, but likely won’t offer too much help in fighting wildfires in eastern Canada. In a briefing Monday morning, Environment Canada meteorologist Gerald Cheng told reporters that while some rain would be seen in parts of Ontario and Quebec, it may not be “significant” enough to assist in fighting the biggest flames. “I sigh because I don’t really have a lot of good news,” he said. “We don’t see lots of rain for places that have the most active fires, especially in Quebec. And, on top of that, only showers in the forecast (are) with thunderstorms, lightning especially later in the week.” He cautioned that with the risk of thunderstorms comes the possibility of lightning that could trigger new fires. Cheng said northwestern Ontario would see no rain until the weekend.

The forest fire threatening the northwestern Quebec city of Normetal has been contained, the province’s forest fire service said Sunday, as the fire situation in the province continued to improve. Nicolas Vigneault, a spokesman for the forest fire service SOPFEU, said the arrival of firefighters from other provinces and from France — as well as soldiers and recently-trained volunteers over the past week — has allowed firefighters to fight the blazes more aggressively. “All this help coming from other provinces, other countries, is really welcomed and, for us, it makes a really big difference in the field because we can attack the fires more aggressively,” he said in an interview Sunday. He said there are now more than 1,200 firefighters battling Quebec’s woodland blazes, with around 100 more expected to arrive from the United States on Tuesday.

MONTREAL — The number of out of control forest fires in Quebec has declined as firefighters begin to take the offensive instead of just reacting to the blazes, the province’s natural resources minister said Sunday. “We’ve gone from a reactive mode to an offensive mode,” Maïté Blanchette Vézina told reporters in Quebec City. As of 1 p.m. Sunday, there were 118 active fires in the province, but the number of those classified as out-of-control has dropped by 30 and stood at 42. Fires near several communities in northern and northwestern Quebec have been brought partially under control, Blanchette Vézina said, but warned that with no rain expected in the affected areas before Tuesday, winds and continued dry conditions could stoke the flames. On Sunday, Chibougamau Mayor Manon Cyr announced that the city’s approximately 7,500 residents could begin returning to their homes on Monday.

MONTREAL – Quebec’s precarious wildfire situation is expected to remain stable over the next 48 hours but residents displaced by the raging forest fires likely won’t be able to return home until early next week, Premier François Legault said Thursday. “We have (as of) today, 13,500 people that have been evacuated, we think that it’ll be stable in the next few days,” Legault told a briefing, but said that evacuees from Chibougamau and Lebel-sur-Quévillon, Que., which account for a large number of those displaced, won’t be able to return until Tuesday at the earliest. Quebec’s wildfire fight was focused Thursday in the province’s northern and western regions, where flames had reached the doorstep of a municipality of roughly 800 people. Authorities said a wildfire was within 500 metres of Normétal, Que., located 720 kilometres northwest of Montreal, in the Abitibi region.

François Legault

With 100 firefighters set to arrive from France on Friday afternoon, Premier François Legault defended the decision not to accept volunteers from Montreal, Laval and Longueuil fire departments ready to help battle more than 130 forest fires in the province. “You have to understand that to add firefighters who are not (specially) trained, it takes supervision, so there’s a limit on the number we can add of regular firefighters who do not have the training to go into the forest,” Legault told a news conference about the forest fires on Thursday afternoon. He thanked Montreal, Laval and Longueuil for the offer, but added: “From what I understand, (forest fire prevention agency SOPFEU) has reached a limit to supervision they can do of people who are not completely trained.” Speaking in Quebec City, Legault said SOPFEU has about 518 of its own firefighters in place, along with about 150 members of the Canadian Armed Forces.

Hundreds of cots carefully set up in the arena in Roberval, Que., now sit empty. Grey wool blankets lie folded in boxes. Officials had planned to offer refuge here to many of the 7,000 evacuees fleeing a raging forest fire near Chibougamau, 250 kilometres north.  Instead, the generosity of locals in the Saguenay–Lac-St-Jean region kicked in. After the evacuees arrived early Wednesday morning, local families began arriving at the arena, offering to house them.  “When we made the emergency plan and we received the population of Chibougamou, I didn’t know it was possible,” Roberval Mayor Serge Bergeron said at a news conference Thursday. “I knew the population of Roberval was generous, but I didn’t know it was [this generous].” Practically every one of the 7,400 evacuees who left Chibaugamou has found a real bed in Roberval. 

People who had to leave their homes due to fires burning across northern and western regions of Quebec will not be able to return to their communities until next week, says Premier François Legault. Legault, speaking at a news conference Wednesday morning in Quebec City, said dry weather and strong winds are creating dangerous conditions and heavy smoke in areas that have been evacuated so far. …Legault also said his government is looking at helping people out with expenses related to evacuations. …Armed forces and out-of-province firefighters have been on the ground in Quebec to help tame the wildfires, but local fire authorities have said they only have the capacity to fight about 40 fires at a time for now. So far, 460,000 hectares of land burned — already surpassing the 1991 total of about 350,000 hectares, said Forestry Minister Maïté Blanchette Vézina. “We have never seen these many hectares [burn],” she said.