HALIFAX — The wildfire that destroyed 150 homes in suburban Halifax last week was as capricious as it was destructive, a fire official said Tuesday as he led members of the media on a tour through two scorched subdivisions.
It was the first time journalists have been allowed into a mandatory evacuation zone since the fire broke out on May 28 and raced through several neighbourhoods, forcing more than 16,000 people to flee their homes. There are still 4,100 people waiting for evacuation orders to lift.
“It’s important to understand that as this wildfire moved … it threw embers up into the air, which landed hundreds of metres in front of the flames … igniting objects in yards, around homes and on back decks,” deputy fire Chief Dave Meldrum said.
The embers, carried aloft by strong winds on a hot, dry day, set fires in a seemingly random pattern that burned many homes to their foundations but left others intact, even if they were only a short distance away.
The haphazard path of the flames depended on small changes in topography and wind, Meldrum said.
On Carmel Crescent in the Highland Park neighbourhood, the surrounding woodlands have no shortage of blackened trees, but they are outnumbered by others thick with green foliage.
On the streets, several cars were left where they burned to barely recognizable hulks. And yet, in this now quiet neighbourhood, the sound of songbirds was everywhere.
Meldrum said the fire started about three kilometres to the west on Juneberry Lane, in the Westwood subdivision. It rapidly moved east to Highland Park, where it eventually climbed a steep hill to destroy all but a few homes on the crescent that marked the first stop on Meldrum's grim tour.
“The fire moved very quickly through this neighbourhood and severely damaged many of the properties here,” he said. “It’s very tragic.”
To say the fire moved fast would be an understatement. Other fire officials have described how firefighters who were among the first to arrive at the scene were repeatedly overrun by the flames and had to withdraw.
And the speed with which residents left is all too apparent. In one yard, a wheelbarrow filled with blackened plants sat in the yard of a burned residence, a shovel leaning on its side.
On Yankeetown Road, where RCMP officers were still controlling access, the scene was much the same. Many intact homes sat next to piles of rubble.
RCMP spokesman Cpl. Guillaume Tremblay, who had been providing media commentary all week, said it was his first visit to the area. “It’s devastating and it’s going to be heartbreaking for people coming back,” he said.
At the third stop, on Bonsai Drive in Yankeetown, Meldrum pointed to a firebreak about five metres wide cut by bulldozers brought in by the provincial Department of Natural Resources. That’s where firefighters stopped the flames from spreading, he said.
“Had the fire progressed beyond this point … properties in the (nearby) Pockwock Road area and into (the suburb of) Bedford (would have been) at risk,” he said. “Part of the strategy to control the fire was to bring in a large volume of heavy equipment and scrape away the soil.”
As thousands of Nova Scotians started returning to their evacuated homes this week, provincial officials warned those with wells to flush them out and get them tested. The testing is necessary because the groundwater could be contaminated by residue from the fire, chemical fire retardants and fuel from ruptured tanks.
Meanwhile, the Barrington Lake wildfire in southwestern Nova Scotia continued to burn out of control, even though the area has seen heavy rain this week.
Dave Rockwood, a public information officer with the Department of Natural Resources, said the fire has not grown since Saturday. But even though the Shelburne County region has received about 95 millimetres of rain in recent days, Rockwood said that wasn't enough to soak the dry ground.
"I'm not confident it's penetrating to cool everything down in the ground," he said, adding fire crews are still finding numerous hot spots in wooded areas.
Some mandatory evacuation orders were lifted in the Barrington and Shelburne areas, and the Roseway Hospital in the town of Shelburne was expected to reopen after it was evacuated last Wednesday.
While the provincewide ban on travel and activities in woodlands has ended, the ban remains in place for Shelburne County and any other evacuation areas in the province. A provincewide ban on outdoor fires also remains in effect.
During an afternoon briefing, Natural Resources Minister Tory Rushton said it will be difficult to determine the extent of damage caused by the Barrington Lake fire because of its size. At 250 square kilometres, the wildfire is the largest recorded in the province's history.
“I want to honestly prepare everyone for the number of homes we’ve lost,” he said, suggesting the latest numbers will grow in the days ahead.
Rushton said about 60 homes and cottages and another 150 structures have been destroyed in Shelburne County, which is about 200 kilometres southwest of Halifax. That number was up slightly from earlier reports.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 6, 2023.
— With files from Marlo Glass in Halifax
By Michael Tutton and Michael MacDonald, The Canadian Press
