mooseland road wildfire leaves families in limbo as crews battle 1,700-hectare blaze
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flames from the mooseland road fire cross the road during the height of the blaze.
nova scotia department of natural resources
the mooseland road wildfire continued to burn out of control friday, growing to 1,700 hectares as of 11:30 a.m. as department of natural resources and halifax regional firefighters work to contain the blaze.
two dnr helicopters, two water bombers from newfoundland and labrador and the province’s four planes that drop fire retardant are also fighting the fire.
residents along mooseland road to highway 7 remain under evacuation orders after the wind changed direction thursday afternoon and the fire jumped the road, growing from seven hectares to 300.
halifax regional municipality spokeswoman sarah brannen said it’s estimated that between 100 and 150 people live within the evacuation zone.
the evacuation order and emergency alert issued thursday night told residents to leave immediately and follow designated evacuation routes. the affected area was a 22-kilometre stretch of the road from civic number 4315 to highway 7.
residents were being asked to register with evacuation centres at musquodoboit rural high school, on highway 224 in middle musquodoboit, or marine drive academy on church point road in sheet harbour.
brannen said that as of friday morning, four people from three homes are staying at one of the evacuation centres. an additional five people from three households have registered virtually but are not staying there.
more information is available at halifax.ca/emergency-communications.
family memories hang in the balance
melissa charalambous has a cottage on mooseland road that was her childhood home. she was alerted to the fire by her neighbours, who look after the property when she’s not there.
her father bought the home in the 1990s, and she bought it after he passed away in 2020.
“i just couldn’t part with it,” she said. “it’s somewhere where we go at least once a year around my dad’s birthday in august, where we’re there just to be present with him. it’s a very special place for our family.”
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she had been planning their trip for next month from her home in ontario, but expects that could be on hold.
“we were supposed to go in a couple weeks and i just i don’t think that’s going to be happening, so it’s just sit, watch and wait, and hope for the best that we still have somewhere to go,” charalambous said.
“it would be devastating to lose it.”
the cottage is about three kilometres south of where the fire is currently burning and it seems to moving east, charalambous said.
pictures of the smoke close to the cottage sent by her neighbours thursday were upsetting, she said.
melissa charalambous and her late father are shown at her property on mooseland road. the cottage, her childhood home, is in the evacuation zone for the mooseland road wildfire. photo contributed by melissa charalambous
“it’s one of those things where you never think it’s going to happen to you until it does,” she said. “being so far away and not being able to anything at all (is hard), but even if we were there we would have been evacuated.”
just after the fire started wednesday the neighbor called and asked if there was anything that she wanted removed as a precaution.
“we didn’t know what was going to happen, so we went and got my dad’s ashes and his log books, those were the two most important things.”
charalambous’s father was an engineer on ships on the great lakes and in the arctic, and the logs record his journeys during his entire career.
“from 16 years old to 59 years old, those books show where he was… everything is in those books, hit writing. it’s something that’s irreplaceable.”
the neighbours retrieved those and packed them into their car along with their 17 chicksn, pet cat and their own belongings and headed out after the evacuation order thursday night.
“i haven’t had an update on how that drive went, but i could imagine it was crazy,” she said. “everyone is just waiting to see what happens.”
now, she said, all she can do is wait.
“we’re hoping for the best, hoping that no one else is displaced and hopefully no homes are affected,” she said.
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“wednesday night was extremely stressful, i don’t think i slept all night just knowing the fire started at night and as soon as it got dark everyone pulled out because there was nothing they could do.”
she said she has confidence in the firefighters working on the fire.
“i’m so thankful that they are there risking their lives. i’m sure they’re tired, i’m sure it’s hard. i’m super thankful for those people.”
lower humidity, change in wind direction, rain in weekend forecast
halifax fire assistant chief amos robia said friday morning the department had about 40 career and volunteer members at the fire to complement crews from the department of natural resources.
robia said the department’s structural protection unit, which is a series of sprinklers that can be set up on homes and around properties to wet them down to protect them from fire, is on the scene.
the fire had not reached the point yet where that unit needed to be set up, robia said, but it is on standby.
“there aren’t any houses that we feel it needs to be set up on yet, but they have all the tools there and are ready if they do need to deploy.”
smoke billows from the mooseland road wildfire on thursday.
nova scotia department of natural resources
at a media briefing friday afternoon, dnr director of forest protection jim rudderham said it was hoped that the fire wouldn’t grow much despite the wind. there was some rain overnight thursday though not enough to make a large dent, but rudderham said crews made good progress on the fire in the morning.
the fire was spreading thursday by ground and also crowning — moving across the tops of trees — but rudderham said he didn’t think it was burning deeply into the ground like the long lake fire last year in annapolis county.
he said there wasn’t as much active fire friday as the day before.
“(thursday) there was a lot of smoke, a lot of active flames, it was very intense. today there was smoke, but not a lot of active fire,” he said.
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“if we can continue the progress (saturday) and rain comes sunday, i’ll be very happy.”
environment and climate change canada meteorologist bob robichaud said saturday is forecast to have less humidity and a wind change to more of a southwesterly direction, which might change the direction of the fire, but a weather system sunday will likely bring 15 to 30 millimetres of rain for the mooseland road area.
there were 25 dnr firefighters and seven incident management personnel at the scene along with halifax firefighters.
two pieces of heavy equipment are opening up access roads.
it’s the first significant wildfire in nova scotia this fire season. the danger of fires growing like this one has been increasing over the past month as rain remains sporadic across the province, and lightning strikes have increased.
the mooseland road fire broke out wednesday night.
there were two other fires that started in the province friday that were believed to be caused by lightning, one in digby county that was under control and another in queens county that was not yet under control mid-afternoon but expected to be soon.
the problem with lightning, rudderham said, is that a fire may not show up for several days after a strike as it smolders in the ground.
meanwhile, dnr said a five-hectare fire in annapolis county that also broke out wednesday night has been contained. that fire was also believed to have started from lightning strikes.
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