Patrick MacLennan with the Department of Natural Resources carries a cat rescued from the evacuated zone of the wildfire burning in Tantallon, N.S. outside of Halifax on Monday, May 29, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darren Calabrese
HALIFAX – For the second time in the past seven years, Danny Osborne has fled his home because of a wildfire.
In May 2016, he escaped the devastating fires in Fort McMurray, Alta., which forced the evacuation of 90,000 people and destroyed 2,400 homes and businesses. His home survived the disaster.
But on Tuesday, Osborne learned the Halifax-area wildfire that has been burning since Sunday had claimed his new residence in Nova Scotia.
He was among a group from the Yankeetown subdivision northwest of Halifax who were led by RCMP to see what remained of their properties after the wildfire swept through.
“It’s gone,” the 45-year-old construction worker said after he returned from seeing his gutted home. “It is completely flattened.”
Osborne recalled how when he left his house after an evacuation was ordered, he saw black, churning smoke in his rear-view mirror and felt the same “gut-wrenching” emotions he endured during the Alberta disaster.
“It’s just chaos, and it’s happening all over the country,” said the father of two, his voice flat and fatigued. “This time, I think I was a little calmer as I’ve been through it before. But it was still very, very scary. It’s the second time I’ve pulled my camper away from a forest fire to live in it.”
Earlier in the day, fire officials said that with the return of dry, windy conditions on Tuesday, there could be a “reburn” in the evacuated subdivisions, which are spread out over 100 square kilometres.
“We are expecting a significant level of fire behaviour,” David Steeves, a forest resources technician with Nova Scotia’s Department of Natural Resources, told reporters at a command post in Upper Tantallon, N.S.
“It’s going to be an increasingly dangerous situation for the firefighters who are on the ground.”
Halifax deputy fire Chief David Meldrum said firefighters spent the night extinguishing hot spots in neighbourhoods where 200 homes and structures have been damaged since the fire started. It remains unclear how many homes have been destroyed because surveys have yet to be completed.
In all, about 16,000 people have been ordered to leave their homes, most of which are within a 30-minute drive of the port city’s downtown.
With the weather forecast calling for southwesterly winds gusting at 30 kilometres per hour, the concern is that the eight-square-kilometre fire will retrace its original route and set fire to what hasn’t already burned, Steeves said.
Trees and other flammable materials in the affected subdivisions have been “cured” by extreme heat, which means they will readily ignite if the fire returns, he said.
“The fuels that haven’t been consumed the first time that the fire went over, now are ready to burn,” he said. “The possibility of reburn … could create a very dangerous environment … That’s why it’s so important for folks to respect the evacuation zones and stay out.”
Meanwhile, the extended forecast is calling for hotter weather on Wednesday and no rain until Friday at the earliest.
As homeowners wait to learn the fate of the evacuated residences, questions are being raised about the response of firefighters and their access to fire hydrants in the sprawling subdivisions.
Meldrum said the fire on Sunday was moving so quickly that firefighters didn’t have time to worry about hydrants.
“Keeping up with the fire during Sunday’s events was more about the speed of the fire and our ability to get resources on the flanks of that fire and less about the availability of water,” he said.
“The intensity of this fire was so serious that our firefighters could not work ahead of the fire for their own safety.”
On Sunday, Halifax Fire district Chief Rob Hebb said his firefighters were at times being overrun by the advancing flames and had to quickly pull back to ensure their safety. “It was chaotic,” Meldrum added Tuesday. “It was an extreme event.”
Fire officials were asked about the inherent dangers in building massive subdivisions that have limited road access and remain exposed to large wooded areas, something Meldrum referred to as the “wildland-urban interface.”
“We all enjoy the beauty of nature,” he said. “But as we build deeper into what used to be forested land, consideration must be made for (installing) lots of places for firefighters to get water, (and building) many routes in and out of communities.”
The Nova Scotia blaze follows early-season wildfires that have forced tens of thousands of people to evacuate from their homes in Alberta, where research on the wildland-urban interface suggests this type of fire is on the rise.
“There are many improvements that we can make in our community design,” Meldrum said.
In September 2021, Halifax’s auditor general released an audit saying management with Halifax Regional Fire and Emergency had noted certain subdivisions were built with “inadequate water sources” to fight fires. Among the subdivisions flagged for concern was Westwood Hills in Upper Tantallon, the same neighbourhood where the wildfire started on Sunday.
The report said the fire department confirmed there was a project in the works to install so-called dry fire hydrants in these subdivisions. These hydrants are not connected to the pressurized municipal water supply but are instead linked to a water source, such as a lake, which requires a pumper truck to extract the water.
As of Tuesday, Halifax Regional Fire and Emergency had six fire engines, 10 tanker trucks and 60 firefighters battling the fire, with the help of crews aboard three helicopters.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 30, 2023.
– With files from Keith Doucette
