An Annapolis County wildfire grew extremely quickly on Thursday to become the province’s largest blaze.
The Long Lake wildfire has forced the evacuation of 42 homes along West Dalhousie Road, an area 16 kilometres from Bridgetown, N.S. It is estimated to be about 300 hectares in size, after a previous update from firefighters said on Thursday morning it was around 10 times smaller.
The blaze is threatening the West Dalhousie Community Centre and two communication towers in the area. The Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has two helicopters on the fire, and a dozer guard is set up to protect the buildings, which is where crews clear a barrier of vegetation so debris won’t burn closer.
“The trees are fully involved in the fire, so the whole tree is burning as the flame front is advancing,” explained Scott Tingley, Forest Protection Manager at DNR. “It’s extreme fire behaviour, it was more active last night than we typically see, and it poses additional challenges in terms of suppression.”
It is also the reason that DNR ordered the evacuation of 4094 – 5315 West Dalhousie Road.
Evacuees can go to the Bridgetown fire department (31 Bay Rd.) or call 1-833-806-1515 for more information.
“We’re pretty confident this was a lightning fire; we had four fires in the last day that are along the same parallel as these,” said Jim Rudderham, director of fleet and forest protection at DNR. “Due to the remoteness of these fires as well, it’s hard for us to get in, so hard for anyone else to get in there as well.”
There are 30 DNR members fighting the Long Lake blaze on Aug. 14 and 10 local firefighters.
Initially, DNR was first on scene in the area to fight the Hoyt Lake fire, which was first estimated to be eight hectares on Wednesday evening. Efforts from firefighters and cooler nighttime temperatures forced it to shrink to about one hectare.
Seven more crew members are tackling the Hoyt Lake fire.
Road closures in the area
- Highway 10 and West Dalhousie Road
- Morse Road and West Dalhousie Road
- West Dalhousie Road at the Environment Canada tower…approximately 5 km west of Morse Road
