Forest fires in northern Quebec result in loss of electricity for thousands throughout province

Quebec's power utility scrambled to get the power back on when nearly a quarter of a million cus‐ tomers lost electricity Thursday afternoon due to forest fires.

Hydro-Québec spokesper‐ son Maxence Huard-Lefebvre said the power outages were related to heat and smoke from the fires in the North Shore that triggered protec‐ tion mechanisms in two transmission lines.

On Twitter, the Crown cor‐ poration said the power would be restored gradually, and within a few hours, more than 200,000 customers had electricity.

At its peak, 240,000 cus‐ tomers were without power, with Montreal one of the hardest hit regions with 125 outages affecting 93,500 cus‐ tomers. But by 5 p.m., the number of customers across the province affected had dropped by more than 60,000. About 40 minutes af‐ ter that, only 40,000 were without power.

On Montreal's South Shore, 42,000 customers lost power, but by 5:45, all but 1,400 had it back. In the Que‐ bec City region, there re‐ main about 5,000 without power (down from 17,000 ear‐ lier today). Tens of thousands of homes and businesses in the Laurents and Lanaudière have the power back now, with only about 6,000 still of‐ fline.

The power outages Thurs‐ day come after some 19,000 customers lost electricity for several hours in Montreal on Wednesday evening. Those outages were due to equip‐ ment issues, not the fires, the public utility said.

WATCH | Quebec's forest fire agency says the situation is changing quickly:

Meanwhile, a forest fire near Chapais, Que., has forced the evacuation of about 500 homes, almost half the com‐ munity.

Société de protection des forêts contre le feu (SOPFEU) spokesperson Mélanie Morin told CBC that there are 13 ac‐ tive forest fires are burning in Quebec, with two of them "out of control."

Back in April, half a million customers lost power in the province. That time, HydroQuébec said there was a "loss of production" from turbo generators at the generating station in Churchill Falls, N.L., which led to automatic shut‐ downs on the network.

"The network's protection mechanisms reacted correct‐ ly, which led to the outages," said spokesperson Cendrix Bouchard at the time.

Earlier in that same month, the province was hit with an ice storm that left more than one million cus‐ tomers without power. Some were without electricity for several days.