Fire north of Lac-st-jean is out of control
Wind and unabating heat have whipped a forest fire into an inferno north of Lac-saint-jean, unleashing pillars of smoke visible from space.
SOPFEU, the provincial forest fire authority, declared earlier this week that the fire was “out of control.” Dry weather and gusting winds on Thursday accelerated the blaze. It grew from 4,000 hectares that day to over 21,000 on Friday — about the size of 40,000 football fields.
It will get bigger, said SOPFEU spokesperson Melanie Morin. The flames are feeding on dense coniferous forest and the weather has been hot and dry.
“It will continue to grow. It’s out of control right now,” Morin added. “It was really the weather conditions yesterday in the area (that caused the fire to grow). It was 35 degrees with 12 per cent humidity.”
It is burning in a remote area, but there are several small villages nearby, Morin said. There are chalets, campsites and fishing reservoirs in the sector.
“There are a certain number of people who are impacted,” she added.
SOPFEU is working with local officials to establish a perimeter around the fire and to warn and evacuate residents.
While large fires are not uncommon in Quebec, provincial fire officials have seen no comparable blaze in years, Morin said.
“When we have a fire over 20,000 hectares, we’re talking about something that’s very serious and will take a good amount of time to contain and extinguish,” she added.
A major-fire response team is on the scene, coordinating the fight against the blaze. But given the fire’s size and aggression, there is no question of putting it out.
Water bombers are relatively ineffective against a fire this large and this hot, Morin said. A handful of the planes initially battled the fire, but now the flames are so high and so hot that any water dropped on the inferno evaporates before it hits the ground.
Videos of the fire posted on social media show walls of smoke and flames visible for hundreds of kilometres. Satellite images of the area taken by NASA on June 18 picked up the plumes of smoke, clearly visible north of Lac-saint-jean.
Alexandre Sergerie- Gaudreault works at a forestry camp in the area. He saw the smoke as he was driving home for the weekend and was worried the flames would block his path, but he was able to get around it.
Though he works in forestry, where veterans speak of seeing massive blazes, Sergerie-gaudreault is new to the industry.
“It was just the second and biggest one I’ve ever seen,” he said of the fire.
Officials believe a recreational fire sparked the blaze, though details are still unclear.
It is the largest fire currently burning in Quebec by a long shot and the only one that is labelled “out of control.” But the forest fire season has been especially busy for firefighters.
When we have a fire over 20,000 hectares, we’re talking about something that’s very serious and will take a good amount of time to contain and extinguish.
There has been twice the number of fires than normal this year. Almost 430 fires have been sparked in Quebec so far compared to the average of 217 that officials have normally seen by this point in the season.
Morin said the increase is due in part to the pandemic. Earlier in the spring, most of the fires were in southern Quebec and began on people’s property.
“It was a bit of the COVID effect,” she said. “People were at home. They had time to do housework. They would burn grass, burn waste and the conditions were there (to spark fires).”
As hot, dry weather continues to stifle southern Quebec, Morin hopes Quebecers obey open-air fire restrictions that are in place for large swaths of the province.
“We have really nice weather and it’s really dry,” she said. “The fire danger is extreme throughout most of the province.”
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter