(Quebec) Authorities have requested the evacuation of 10,000 people in Sept-Îles due to an out-of-control forest fire that progressed rapidly overnight from Thursday to Friday. The Canadian Armed Forces are present “just in case”, and the Minister of Public Security is in contact with the Red Cross.
Posted at 10:20 a.m.
Updated at 2:35 p.m.
“There are about 10,000 people who are evacuated as a precaution on the Sept-Îles side, there are about 1,000 on the Chapais side,” said Public Security Minister François Bonnardel on Friday. press briefing at the National Assembly. His cabinet later clarified that this was the total number of planned evacuations in the city of 25,000 and surrounding areas.
Evacuation is mandatory in the Lac-Daigle, Plages and Moisie sectors, said the mayor of Sept-Îles, Steeve Beaupré, in a press briefing on Friday morning.
The evacuation of Lac-Daigle was already underway in the morning. As for residents of Les Plages and Moisie, they have until 4 p.m. Friday to leave their homes. This fire “has taken on a magnitude that was not expected [jeudi] and that is what justifies this evacuation,” said Mayor Beaupré. “Last night, the latest information, it was not going in that direction, but the fire has progressed a lot”, so that there “could be a junction between the two fires which are currently in activity”, has he explained.
Complete evacuation of Mani-utenam
The Innu community of Uashat Mak Mani-utenam also declared a state of emergency and announced the complete evacuation of Mani-utenam, located about fifteen kilometers from Sept-Îles, due to the rapid progression of the fire of the Moisie River. The 1,500 residents must have left the premises before 5 p.m. Friday evening. They can be transported by bus to the community of Pessamit, where they will be welcomed.
Fire 215, which broke out at 5 p.m. Wednesday, about ten kilometers north of Sept-Îles (north of Lac Daigle) was considered stable on Friday morning. It’s more like fire 172 [de la rivière Moisie]which progressed very significantly towards the south during the night, and continued to progress very quickly on Friday morning, the authorities said.
It is this fire that concerns the largest employer in the region, the multinational Rio Tinto. It had to interrupt its iron ore transport activities because it closed for a period of seven days the private railway it operates, the Quebec North Shore and Labradorwhich connects Sept-Îles to Labrador City.
Closure of the railway
“For the moment, the main infrastructures have not been seriously affected, but there are communication infrastructures that are damaged [le réseau de fibre optique et une tour de communication], while poles fell across and along the tracks. Our brigade is continuing its efforts to protect a bridge and a tower located at mile 12 and we are continuing to work with SOPFEU,” said company spokesperson Simon Letendre.
The closure of this railway has just enclaved Shefferville, because the passenger train can no longer circulate either. The Matimekosh community is “more isolated than ever,” said Ian Lafrenière, the minister responsible for First Nations Relations.
For its part, the Côte-Nord Integrated Health and Social Services Center (CISSS) announced that it was suspending “until further notice” all its “non-emergency” activities at the Sept-Îles Hospital in due to forest fires. It therefore closed the outpatient clinics, and the endoscopy and medical imaging departments.
The information will be updated hourly, said the Society for the Protection of Forests against Fire (SOPFEU).
Citizens are invited to stay informed through the Urgence Québec page.
The work zones on routes 138 and 172 will be lifted to facilitate evacuation and where this is not possible, there will be flaggers, said the minister responsible for the Côte-Nord region, Kateri Champagne Jourdain. The ministerial decree of Quebec also prohibits going into the forest on public lands, she recalled.
In Sept-Îles on the North Shore, accommodation centers have been opened. “We necessarily invite the population to go to the family. It’s not easy, it’s a lot of people. We are talking about 2,000 to 3,000 people who need accommodation. We are in contact with the mayor and the Red Cross,” added Mr. Bonnardel. Residential centers are being set up in several places, including Port-Cartier, Forestville and Baie-Comeau.
Call for help
The majority of the 118 fires in activity are out of control, indicates SOPFEU. Of these, 114 are found in southern Quebec, below the northern limit of forests attributable to the forest industry; the other four are in the northern zone and are not fought.
One of the largest fires is at the gates of the town of Chapais, in Nord-du-Québec, and covers nearly 1,400 hectares, or 14 km2. Part of the town was evacuated.
An even larger blaze is raging about fifty kilometers north of Dolbeau-Mistassini, in Lac-Saint-Jean, covering nearly 2000 hectares (20 km2), but does not pose a threat to the city.
All SOPFEU personnel have been repatriated to Quebec, where they are fighting 20 forest fires, out of the 118 in progress: 400 firefighters are hard at work. Quebec has also asked for help from Mexico, the United States and Portugal.
Prime Minister François Legault said he was worried about the situation. “We are making sure that everyone is well housed. [Jeudi], the fires also triggered a system at Hydro-Quebec that left 250,000 homes without electricity. We have reached 5,000 this morning who have no electricity, ”he said.
The government of Quebec asks all Quebecers “not to go into the forest” to avoid causing new fires, and “to agree to follow the instructions” for evacuation.
The SPCA Côte-Nord, for its part, did not wait to look for foster families for its 40 cats and 17 dogs. “We must prepare for the worst, because we will be the next sector affected by the evacuation [si elle en vient à cela] “, indicated the organization with strong red exclamation marks on its Facebook page on Friday.
With Tommy Chouinard, Ariane Krol and Jean-Thomas Léveillé, The Press
