Officials say the wildfire burning in the Upper Tantallon, N.S., area has grown to 837 hectares.
Dave Steeves, with Nova Scotia’s Department of Natural Resources and Renewables, provided an update on the fire Wednesday morning along with Halifax Fire deputy chief David Meldrum.
Steeves attributes the fire growth -- of about 49 hectares -- to Tuesday’s fire behaviour and more accurate mapping.
“It’s not something that we didn’t foresee happening yesterday, with the weather that we had. And we were fortunate with the hard work of the firefighters on the ground that we were able to hold it to where we did.”
He says Wednesday could be another difficult, dangerous day, with winds gusting up to 25 kilometers out of the southwest and low humidity at around 20 per cent.
“When our relative humidity levels get close to the forecasted temperature of today, that’s a phenomenon of what we call crossover and the phenomenon of crossover is an indicator of extreme fire behaviour.”
Meldrum says approximately 100 firefighters will work on hotspots and flare ups Wednesday, including two units from Charlottetown.
He also said he can’t speculate as to when the fire will be under control or when evacuation zones will change to allow people to return to their homes.
“I would encourage all of us to be ready for a long fire fight. We’ve got a lot of dry weather days ahead, we’ve got low humidity forecasted. This is going to be a prolonged operation.”
He describes the site of the fire as a “tragedy” with wide-spread destruction.
“And, at the same time, there is a level of randomness that comes with wildfires when they hit the urban interface, where people live. So there are properties that are unharmed in close proximity to properties that are destroyed. It’s terrible to see – these are people’s homes, this is a community.”
Steeves stressed that fire officials are not keeping residents out of their homes because they want to.
“This is to keep people alive. This is a very dangerous situation. It’s changing every moment, with wind, with fuels, with the lay of the land, how the sun is heating the fuels – everything is constantly evolving,” he said.
“We have to take the safest route for the citizens that we are here serve and if that is keeping them at bay a little bit longer until we can ensure the environment is safe for them to return, that’s what we have to do. It’s not what we want to do, it’s what we have to do.”
EVACUATION ORDERS
Evacuation orders remain in place for residents in the following communities:
- Westwood subdivision, Upper Tantallon
- Whitehills subdivision, Hammonds Plains
- Highland Park subdivision, Yankeetown
- Haliburton Hills
- Pockwock Road
- Glen Arbour
- Lucasville Road to Sackville Drive
- Maplewood
- Voyageur Way
- St George Boulevard, including all side streets
- McCabe Lake area
- Indigo Shores
Pre-evacuation notices are also in place for a separate fire in the Bedford, N.S., area.
A map of Halifax fire evacuation areas and the local state of emergency area as of Tuesday night. (Source: Halifax Regional Municipality)
EVACUATION CENTRE
The Canada Games Centre evacuation centre at 26 Thomas Raddall Drive in Halifax is open until further notice.
Nova Scotia Health’s mobility primary care clinic is hosting another drop-in clinic at the centre until 5 p.m.
The Insurance Bureau of Canada and seven major insurance companies will be available to speak with affected residents at the centre until 5 p.m.
They will also be at the Black Point and Area Community Centre until noon.
COMFORT CENTRES
SCHOOLS
The Halifax Regional Centre for Education says the following schools are closed Wednesday due to wildfires and evacuations:
- Bay View High School
- Tantallon Junior Elementary
- Tantallon Senior Elementary
- Five Bridges Junior High
- St. Margaret’s Bay Elementary
- Kingswood Elementary
- Hammonds Plains Consolidated
- Madeline Symonds Middle School
- Charles P. Allen High School
- Basinview Drive Community School
- Bedford South School
- Harry R. Hamilton Elementary
- Millwood Elementary
- Millwood High School
- Sackville Heights Elementary
- Sackville Heights Junior High
POWER
As of 9 a.m. Wednesday, more than 3,000 Nova Scotia Power customers in the Upper Tantallon and Hammonds Plains areas are without electricity.
FIRE WEBPAGE
The Nova Scotia government continues to update a new webpage with the latest emergency alerts and resource information about fires in the province.
For more Nova Scotia news, visit our dedicated provincial page.
