Despite searing heat, New Brunswick officials say firefighters have gotten ahead of a wildfire north of Moncton, in the Irishtown district of Maple Hills, where 1,500 people live.
Heavy amounts of fire retardant were dropped and fire breaks bulldozed and excavated around a wide perimeter of the fire that gobbled up 45 hectares of woodland, the equivalent of 22 football fields, after first being detected Sunday late morning.
“We have yet to have a loss of a life or a structure, and we all hope and are focused on making sure that continues to be the case for the days to come,” said Premier Susan Holt at a news conference in Fredericton on Wednesday.
While no buildings were lost, three firefighters had to be rushed to hospital for heat exhaustion. John Herron, the minister of natural resources, said they’re expected to make a full recovery.
However, the bigger, out-of-control wildfire near Miramichi, where there are far fewer people, remains a serious concern.
Herron said firefighters had successfully steered that fire in the right direction, away from houses, camps and businesses, but had been unable to contain it.
First detected Aug. 6, the Oldfield Road Fire had grown to 1,358 hectares by Wednesday evening, similar in size to more than 600 football fields. The premier said people who had expressed worry in the nearby communities of Lavillette and Neguac on the coast were still not on standby for evacuation.
She and Public Safety Minister Robert Gauvin said they were basing their decisions on experts in the field. Should anyone need to be evacuated, they will receive an Alert Ready notification on their phone, computer, TV or radio, authorities said.
Farther south, people had packed their bags over the last several days were growing increasingly anxious before the standby notice was lifted. Enid Leger, who lives on the Weisner Road, off Shediac Road, said it had been a stressful week in an otherwise quiet rural community.
She and her partner Terry McRobbie saw the waterbombing aircraft flying over their house all day Sunday and Monday. At times, chunks of smoking hot ash from the fires were landing in their yard.
They were concerned about the possibility of evacuating, so she loaded her car with family photographs and other important articles. While the order to evacuate didn’t come, she believes there should be a better way of communicating with people who live in a danger zone.
The Weisner Road falls within the new Maple Hills rural community that was created under the province’s municipal reform.
“Ironically, I had volunteered to serve on a new committee to deal with emergency measures,” she said. “Our first meeting was scheduled for Monday and was cancelled because of this.”
“It’s really been a waiting game and lots of worry.”
The premier said she understood the situation was nerve-wracking.
“When you’ve been told to get ready for evacuation, and you pack your bags and stuff is sitting by the front door, and then you’re sitting by the radio or your laptop and you’re hitting refresh, you want new information every minute,” Holt said.
“The team has been doing their best to provide good and clear communications, as we get information from the ground. As you can appreciate, for those folks, their first task is to put out the fire and then tell us the work they’re doing.”
To underline the volatility of the situation, by 8 p.m. on Wednesday, the Irishtown fire was listed as “contained”, after previously being described as “out of control” while another fire, east of Bathurst in a sparsely populated area labelled Caché, was re-listed as “out of control.”
Officials are encouraging people to get up-to-date information by looking at the province’s FireWatch page or social media for the Emergency Measures Organization or by contacting their local municipalities.
The website has a live dashboard and a PDF report that’s updated every 15 minutes.
The latest summary released Thursday morning showed that across New Brunswick, two fires still out of control, two under control, three contained, and seven under patrol for possible flareups. Eleven were considered out.
There was a break in the extreme heat Thursday after a four-day heat wave that saw temperatures soar to the upper 30s C and humidex values hitting above 40. There was also a scattering of showers, but lightning strikes over night also started some fires.
Although the three leaders at the news conference praised many New Brunswickers for abiding by the law and offering help, they expressed disappointment that some people were still making illegal backyard fires or ripping around on ATVs or side-by sides on public trails.
Such activities were banned as of the weekend. Asked if any fines had been administered since two were delivered earlier in the week for people making campfires, Holt said the idea wasn’t to be punitive but to encourage the right behaviour.
A burn ban, which includes campfires in provincial parks, remained in place for the entire province Thursday, and recreational activities on Crown lands were not permitted.
Logging operations such as harvesting, forwarding, skidding, scarification, chipping and all pre-commercial thinning and cleaning were suspended indefinitely over the weekend, on both Crown and private land.
Officials said some forestry operations would resume Thursday night if the fire risk had dampened. For instance, officials said peat piles may be reduced since they can cause a fire hazard. As well, if a mill has less than a five-day supply of harvested trees, trucks will be allowed to go into the woods to get that supply, provided they have water at the ready for dousing fires.
Blueberries on Crown land will be allowed to be harvested again, but farmers will have to get a permit and meet specific conditions, such as working at night and with firefighting equipment on site.
The Department of Natural Resources said in a release it would communicate the conditions with those industries directly.
Officials at the press conference also encouraged New Brunswickers to conserve water, as the historic drought could soon pose problems for municipal and private wells.
Moncton Fire Chief Conrad Landry said Moncton, Riverview and Dieppe has had 24 firefighters worked at extinguishing the Irishtown blaze all Wednesday. Fire departments from Havelock, Petitcodiac, Salisbury and other communities also sent vehicles and firefighters to help. The municipal firefighters were working with provincial firefighters to dig at hot spots as temperatures soared above 35 C.
“Dealing with the heat and the terrain is the hard part,” Landry said. “There are stumps and trees that are half burned, and that is hard on the firefighters.”
He said the hard work in the heat was exhausting.
“The good news is that it’s not the same gear we wear for structural fires. These are special coveralls and a different helmet, and nothing on their back,” Landry said.
“The bad news is that this is hard physical work with shovels and axes to dig at the roots to make sure the fire is completely out. The hot weather and physical work is a tough combination.”
Over the last several days, the province has been bombing different fires with water, using 14 air tankers and three helicopters.
A total of 30 firefighters from other places are helping – five from Prince Edward Island, five from Maine and 20 from Nova Scotia. They have joined more than 100 personnel in New Brunswick who are specially trained to combat wildfires.
This is short of the 60 Herron had asked for through the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. It also hasn’t had access to a third superscooper water bomber it had requested from Baie-Comeau, Que.
But Herron said wildfires were a national threat, and the resources were being shipped where they were most needed, including Newfoundland. Two of New Brunswick’s water bombers were temporarily sent to Nova Scotia on Tuesday to help the neighbouring province douse some fires.
The province on Wednesday reminded people on standby for evacuation that they should have a bag ready with water, food, flashlight, radio, batteries, first aid kit, masks for smoke filtration, prescription medications, cash, and, if needed, pet food and baby formula. Authorities also encouraged people to keep legal documents and passports at the ready.
“As a reminder, every household that could potentially be affected should have a kit stocked with everything their family would need for at least 72 hours in the event of an evacuation,” said Nick Brown, a spokesman for the Department of Natural Resources and Energy Development.
Ernest Robichaud, mayor of the Alnwick rural community north of Miramichi, said he was happy rain and a change of wind direction was in Thursday’s forecast.
“A little bit of rain would help. A week of steady rain would probably be better, but we’ll take whatever we can get,” said Robichaud, who lives in Tabusintac.
“I commend the people on the front lines fighting the fire. It’s hot where we are, so it must be even hotter where they’re at.”
Herron told reporters at the press conference that five millimetres of rain would “buy you a day,” and 50 mm would help get the province back to normal. A heavy rainfall like that is not in the immediate forecast.
To help people suffering from the hot temperatures, the provincial government set up 15 comfort centres around the province with air conditioning. Old people living alone are considered particularly vulnerable.
The public safety minister, meanwhile, encouraged people to check on their neighbours, families and friends.
Both he and Herron recently heard from the president of Mount Allison University, Ian Sutherland, who offered his institution’s residences in Sackville for anyone who needed to be evacuated until Aug. 26, when students return for the academic year.
“Go Mounties!” Herron joked, a reference to Mount A’s sports teams.
