Tag: firefighters

Thick smoke has pre­ven­ted offi­cials from sur­vey­ing toll

This article was written by the Canadian Press and was published in the Toronto Star on August 12, 2025.

SMALL POINT­ADAM’S COVEBLACKHEAD­BROAD COVE, N.L. He has no offi­cial con­firm­a­tion, but Luo Xu is cer­tain his fam­ily’s evac­u­ated home in east­ern New­found­land has been des­troyed by wild­fire.

On Sat­urday night, he watched live images from a secur­ity cam­era show­ing smoke and then flames filling the screen before going blank.

“I don’t think any words could ever be able to describe my feel­ings about watch­ing our own house burn­ing,” Xu said on Monday.

At the time, there were seven act­ive wild­fires in the province — five in New­found­land and two in Lab­rador. Of the four burn­ing out of con­trol, the fire that entered West­ern Bay was by far the largest. As of Sat­urday, about 3,000 people had been told to leave their homes.

Xu said it appears his home, which he shared with his wife and two young chil­dren, burned down Sat­urday around 6 p.m. “The cam­era sits inside the house, right by the front win­dow, so I know it’s gone. Even if it’s not fully gone, it’s badly burned. It will be a total loss.”

Pro­vin­cial offi­cials said Monday thick smoke in the com­munit­ies along the north­west­ern shore of Con­cep­tion Bay, like West­ern Bay, has pre­ven­ted them from being able to count the num­ber of des­troyed homes and other struc­tures.

A week ago, Xu and his fam­ily were told to evac­u­ate their home for the second time this wild­fire sea­son. They were told to leave back in May when an earlier wild­fire threatened the area.

Xu and his fam­ily are now stay­ing in the neigh­bour­ing town of Car­bonear.

“The evac­u­ation centre, it’s like a big fam­ily,” he said. “We all go there and have a little chat and just try to be pos­it­ive. We will try to get through this dis­aster together.”

Mean­while, pro­vin­cial fire duty officer Mark Lawlor said the fire in ques­tion star­ted over a week ago near the coastal town of King­ston, N.L., and has since expan­ded to about 52 square kilo­metres.

At Ochre Pit Cove, about 13 kilo­metres north of King­ston, the local Red Ochre Café is now a fire­fight­ing com­mand post. Café owner Ray Dwyer said most of his neigh­bours are wor­ried about their homes.

“It’s scary for every­body,” he said. “Every­one’s evac­u­ated and they don’t know how their prop­er­ties are. Half the north shore here is scorched. It’s strange when you go up the road and there’s not a per­son, not an animal. It’s just pretty des­ol­ate.”

The pic­tur­esque ham­let was evac­u­ated last Monday.

Dwyer, who has man­aged the café for six years, said his 13 local employ­ees are out of a job, and elec­tri­city in the area has been cut off.

“I had five great big freez­ers full and I have to go throw it away,” he said. “The worst part about it is my employ­ees have no income. It’s got me killed that I can’t help them.”

Premier John Hogan told a brief­ing in St. John’s that crews bat­tling the King­ston fire were deal­ing with the same high winds and soar­ing tem­per­at­ures that helped spread the fire on the week­end.

“The fire­fight­ers and heavy equip­ment are con­tinu­ing to work … to expand the fuel break on the south­ern edge of the fire,” he said.

The premier and his offi­cials were unable to say how many homes or other build­ings had been lost to the fires. And they could not provide an update on the num­ber of evacu­ees still out of their homes.

Hogan said two addi­tional water bombers from Ontario were expec­ted to arrive Monday. And he con­firmed that the Cana­dian Armed Forces would be increas­ing the num­ber of its fire­fight­ers from 40 to 80 by Tues­day.