A huge inferno is approaching

(Sept-Îles, Montreal and Quebec) Feverish, but confident: the residents of Sept-Îles are preparing for the worst as a huge forest fire approached the municipality on Friday, carried by the wind and the dry weather of the last days. No fewer than 10,000 of them were evacuated.

In the evening, Friday, many police vehicles and authorities of the Society for the Protection of Forests against Fire (SOPFEU) crisscrossed the streets of the city.

It was one of the only signs of the urgency of the situation since, despite the proximity of the blaze, the wind carried its smell and its smoke further north.

Long lines in front of fast food outlets and the presence of several trailers in the parking lots also hinted at the evacuation of several residents.

Residential centers have opened their doors further west, in Baie-Comeau and Forestville. In Port-Cartier, 300 cots have been installed on the empty ice of the Recreational and Cultural Complex.

“We have three times like that,” said an employee met on site Friday evening when the place was almost deserted since the vast majority of people had managed to stay with relatives in Sept-Îles.

Evacuation order in Sept-Îles

The mandatory evacuation order affects the Lac-Daigle, Plages and Moisie sectors, according to what the mayor of Sept-Îles, Steeve Beaupré, said. Some 10,000 residents were affected, according to Quebec.

At the end of the day, the mayor warned the residents of the Sainte-Famille district, more densely populated, to prepare their suitcases in case of evacuation in the coming days: they are on “pre-alert”.

In the case of the Innu community of Uashat mak Mani-utenam, which also declared a state of emergency, all of the 1,500 residents of Mani-utenam had to evacuate. They could be transported by bus to the Innu community of Pessamit, more than 300 km to the west, where they would be welcomed.

A dozen patients in need of acute active care were evacuated by plane to the CHU de Québec – Université Laval, announced the CISSS de la Côte-Nord at the start of the evening. Other users could be evacuated in the coming hours and days, while “non-emergency” activities are suspended “until further notice” at the Sept-Îles hospital.

Assistance from the Canadian Armed Forces

The person responsible for this commotion: “Fire 172”, which runs along the Moisie River; this fire “has taken on a magnitude that was not expected [jeudi] and that is what justifies this evacuation,” said Mayor Steeve Beaupré.

” [Jeudi] evening, the latest information, it was not going in that direction, but the fire has progressed a lot”, so that there “could be a junction between the two fires which are currently in activity”, did t -he explains. At the end of the day on Friday, this fire was still progressing, but more slowly.

Faced with the urgency of the situation, the Legault government asked for the help of the Canadian Armed Forces.

“I have just contacted the federal government to seek assistance from the Canadian Armed Forces with the forest fire situation. […] We are doing everything in our power to help the people of the North Shore,” Public Security Minister François Bonnardel said late in the afternoon.

Quebec is asking for help to transport emergency equipment, foodstuffs and gasoline, evacuate disaster victims, provide technical support and expertise in civil engineering and to “contribute to the logistical planning of the supply of ’emergency of isolated communities’.

“It’s not panic”

Having learned Friday morning that they had to leave their homes before 4 p.m., several residents found accommodation in Sept-Îles itself, with relatives, hoping to be able to return home soon.

At the Laurent-Val campsite, in Moisie, where only about thirty of the 165 pitches were occupied on Friday morning, the telephone was not ringing.

“Maybe there are people who will need their RV [véhicule récréatif] to stay in other places,” predicted the owner, Francine Perreault.

This is what she and her husband were about to do at the end of the day. “We’re going to Sept-Îles, hoping they don’t evacuate [ce secteur] “, she said, while emphasizing that she found “nothing stressful” in the situation.

The ashes of the uncontrolled forest fires had also gone to Sept-Îles the day before, in particular in the sector of the Beaches, further east.

Into the unknown

A native of Sept-Îles, Marie-Lyne Essiembre, a 44-year-old mother, says she has never experienced anything like this. “I feel a little disorganized because we don’t know if we’ll be able to come back in the next few days. Do we bring two pairs of pants, or do we bring ten? But we bring the [console de jeu] PS5,” she slipped with a smile in her voice.

The city center was not targeted by the evacuations on Friday morning, but the Beauce Carnaval amusement park, installed a few days earlier, was monitoring the situation.

“Where we are, behind the shopping center, we don’t see any fire, no smoke, the sky is blue. It is rather 15 kilometers higher, ”said the owner, Véronique Vallée, reached by telephone at the scene.

Closure of the railway

The fire worries the largest employer in the region, the multinational Rio Tinto. It had to interrupt its iron ore transport activities because it closed for a period of seven days the private railway it operates, the Quebec North Shore and Labrador, which connects Sept-Îles to Labrador City.

“For the moment, the main infrastructures have not been seriously affected, but there are communication infrastructures that are damaged [le réseau de fibre optique et une tour de communication]while poles fell across and along the track,” said company spokesman Simon Letendre.

The closing of this railway has just enclaved Schefferville, because the passenger train can no longer circulate either.

With the collaboration of Charles Lecavalier, Lila Dussault, Tommy Chouinard and Jean-Thomas Léveillé, The Press