There are now nine fires burning across Newfoundland and Labrador, a provincial official said Tuesday night, including an out-of-control blaze on the Bonavista Peninsula covering 1,200 hectares, destroying a number of cabins in its wake.
The fire near Chance Harbour about 300 km north of St. John’s on the Bonavista Peninsula is the province’s only out-of-control wildfire, said provincial fire duty officer Mark Lawlor.
Two other wildfires are burning in Labrador, Lawlor said. One is between 10 and 15 kilometres southeast of Cartwright and the other is burning around 80 kilometres east of Churchill Falls.
Earlier information about a third fire burning in Labrador near Port Hope Simpson turned out to be inaccurate, Lawlor added Tuesday night.
In a statement, the Department of Fisheries, Forestry and Agriculture said the Chance Harbour fire has not grown in size beyond 1,200 hectares and firefighting efforts are focused on its southeastern section.
An incident management team has been set up with more ground crews coming in by Wednesday and the department has also assigned 25 staff.
“The forecast suggests the wildfire will remain quite active and fire suppression operations will continue to expand over the next several days,” said the statement.
Lawlor said doesn’t know how many cabins near Chance Harbour have burned down, but he does believe more are at risk.
Meanwhile, he said nearby communities, including Jamestown and Winter Brook, are not in danger at this time.
On Monday an evacuation order was issued for people with cabins in the area around Chance Harbour’s resource road, forcing people to flee.
On Tuesday afternoon, the province announced the resource road, also called Chance Harbour Resource Road near Winter Brook, is closed to the public.
Lawlor is asking people to be diligent so firefighters don’t have to stretch their resources.
“We have a lot of fires now that are under control where we’re taking resources off … so that we have people available to respond to any new fires,” said Lawlor.
The cause of the Chance Harbour fire is still under investigation, according to Lawlor.
In the meantime, Lawlor said morale is high and firefighters are ready to tackle the flames in Chance Harbour and beyond.
He also expects the provincewide fire ban to stay in place as long as the dry weather continues.
‘It was just consuming everything’
Ryan Pitts, who has lived in the Chance Harbour area since childhood, said his parents were at a family member’s cabin when the fire started on Monday. The white plumes in the sky looked like fog to them at first.
On Monday night, Pitts told CBC News the clouds turned black — his father declared that there was a fire and reported it to the coast guard.
A fire burning at Chance Harbour continues to burn out of control on Tuesday, and has destroyed several cabins in the area. Ryan Pitts’ family has a cabin there, and was on the water in the area when the fire started. He shares what he saw with the CBC’s Andrew Nichols.
After watching the flames from his house for some time, Pitts took his boat out to the cabins near Chance Harbour to see if anyone needed help.
“By the time I got out there, it was just consuming everything,” he said.
Pitts said he got one last glimpse of his uncle’s cabin before turning back, and it was either on fire or the shed behind it was.
The smoke engulfed everything after that, he said.
“What can you say? You’re watching it all burn and there’s nothing you can do.”
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