Eastern Canada wildfire evacuates thousands

A fire east of Québec in Newfoundland and Labrador has burned more than 24,000 acres and forced thousands to evacuate Labrador City. CNN reported that the “extremely aggressive inferno” was considered contained earlier this week, but weather changes on Friday blew the fire back to life and it spread rapidly. Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador Andrew Furey said Saturday the fire had grown to 22,000 acres and had spread 13 miles in about four hours.

In a news conference on Sunday, Furey said weather conditions are favourable for firefighting. “We have some good news today. There is no significant growth in the size of the fire that is just northwest of Lab City,” he told reporters. The fire has burned through about 14,000 hectares (about 35,000 acres) to within four kilometres of the community — the same as Saturday.

Newfoundland and Labrador fires, ESRI map
Newfoundland and Labrador fires, ESRI map

Light rain, lower temperature and humidity, and northeast winds has kept  the fire away from the town and burning onto itself.

Four water bombers are fighting on the eastern front of the fire. Six to eight are fighting on the western side from Quebec.

Around 9,500 people were evacuated from Labrador City, said Jeremy Reynolds with the provincial government. “A contingent of essential personnel have remained behind to oversee the emergency response,” he said.

The remoted town of Labrador City, in the northwestern part of the province, is about 900 miles north of Canada’s capital city of Ottawa.

A province-wide outdoor fire ban prohibiting setting of fires on forest land or within 300 metres of forest land is now in effect in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Significant firefighting resources are currently dedicated to wildfire suppression near the communities of Labrador West.

Updates on the location, status, and size of active fires can be viewed online at the NL Active Wildfire Dashboard.

Labrador City fires
Labrador City fires

Residents were told to evacuate to the Town of Happy Valley-Goose Bay – a six-hour drive away.

Scooper drops on a truck fire

When an 18-wheeler crashed into a road grader and caught fire in northern Canada on July 29, an air tanker was called in to help prevent the fire from spreading farther into the vegetation. This video was shot on a cell phone by Shawn Noseworthy, a manager with Humber Valley Paving, who was part of a work crew on site when the crash occurred about 30 miles from Churchill Falls, a town of 650 residents.

Here are a couple of screen grabs — the video is below.

Scooper drop on truck fire

Scooper drop on truck fire

According to the Daily Mail:

The Royal Newfoundland and Labrador Constabulary says the driver of the tractor-trailer rig slammed head-on into the road grater. He was trapped inside as the big rig caught fire, but the grater driver managed to pull the big rig driver to safety. He was taken to Goose Bay-Happy Valley and treated for non-life-threatening injuries at the hospital.

I am not sure if it’s a CL-215, CL215T, or CL-415. I can’t see any winglets at the end of the wings, but I think there are some ‘finlets‘ – two vertical stabilizers on each side of the horizontal tail surface. The presence of both would indicate either a turbo-converted CL-215 or a CL-415. In the audio, it sounds like turbine engines.

 

Thanks go out to Tristan.