A growing wildfire that started Monday on the Bonavista Peninsula has destroyed cabins, but the exact toll remains unknown.
An evacuation order was issued for people with cabins in the area around Chance Harbour’s resource road, forcing people to flee.
On Tuesday, provincial fire duty officer Mark Lawlor said the fire is still out of control and has grown to 1,200 hectares, making it the largest fire in the province.
He can’t confirm how many cabins have been lost yet.
Lawlor said the fire is moving northeast, away from communities and toward the water. Still, he’s expecting some “extreme fire behaviour” again on Tuesday due to the hot weather.
That means it’s uncertain when people will be able to check on their cabins in the area.
“It looks pretty well like we’re going to have three nice days … so I can’t really predict [a return to their cabins],” Lawlor told CBC Radio’s The St. John’s Morning Show.
Lawlor is asking people to be diligent so firefighters don’t have to stretch their resources.
“We have a lot of fires now that are under control where we’re taking resources off … so that we have people available to respond to any new fires,” said Lawlor.
The cause of the Chance Harbour fire is still under investigation, according to Lawlor.
The provincial wildfire dashboard is reporting nine fires as of Tuesday morning — two of them out of control — as temperatures continue to range from the 20s to 30s.
Lawlor said resources are available to be brought in from other provinces like New Brunswick, which provided Newfoundland and Labrador with a bird dog plane.
In the meantime, Lawlor said morale is high and firefighters are ready to tackle the flames in Chance Harbour and beyond.
He also expects the provincewide fire ban to stay in place as long as the dry weather continues.
Ryan Pitts, who has lived in the Chance Harbour area since childhood, said his parents were at a family member’s cabin when the fire started on Monday. The white plumes in the sky looked like fog to them at first.
On Monday night Pitts told CBC News the clouds turned black — his father declared that there was a fire and reported it to the coast guard.
After watching the flames from his house for some time, Pitts took his boat out to the cabins near Chance Harbour to see if anyone needed help.
“By the time I got out there, it was just consuming everything,” he said.
Pitts said he got one last glimpse of his uncle’s cabin before turning back, and it was either on fire or the shed behind it was.
The smoke engulfed everything after that, he said.
“What can you say? You’re watching it all burn and there’s nothing you can do.”
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