ST. John’s-Thursday morning, more and more people were luggage to flee their homes, while forest fires raged in Newfoundland and Labrador, along the west shore of the design Bay, about 45 kilometers north-east of St. John’s.
The flames have destroyed a dozen houses since Wednesday afternoon, said Gerry Rogers, a resident of the merged city of Small Point-Adam’s Cove-Blackhead-Broad Cove, on the island of Newfoundland.
Thursday morning, Ms. Rogers was moved by making a hundred steps in front of her house, packing her things to leave. She could see the flames approaching her house looking out the window, she said in an interview.
“Being somewhere where there is a fire that rages – a fire that is raging!” – and be surrounded by water, “said Ms. Rogers, her trembling voice. “It’s so ironic, do you know?” Because we are just by the ocean. ” The authorities of the municipality of 415 inhabitants declared the state of emergency shortly after 10 p.m. on Wednesday.
Gerry Rogers said he had seen smoke for the first time on Wednesday afternoon, when she was going home by car from Carbonear, a larger municipality around four kilometers east of Small Point-Adam’s Cove-Blackhead-Broad Cove.
“You could see the fire over the hill, and it spread very quickly,” she said. There has been practically no snow over the past two years, and there has not been rain. The earth is dried up here. “
Water bombers turned off the flames all afternoon and until evening, but they stopped at night. Residents of neighboring neighborhoods of Adam’s Cove and Western Bay were ordered to evacuate on Wednesday. Rogers said her neighbors also left on Thursday morning.
-The water bombers were delayed that morning because of the fog, she said, but they were back at 10:30 a.m.
“Our firefighters are so tired,” she added. They don’t say it, but they worked hard. During the night, they did their best to save other houses. ”
“It’s different, because we have no funeral terminals,” also explained Ms. Rogers. The trucks must go to the pond, fill up, then return to the fire. ”
The province’s forest fire dashboard indicated two out of control fires in the region on Thursday. The authorities have set up several emergency centers for people who cannot go home because of the flames.
Provincial authorities did not provide any information or an interview on Thursday morning, but a spokesman said that the Fêches, Forestry and Agriculture Ministry planned to publish a notice later in the day.
Sarah Smellie, the Canadian press
