(Quebec) Even if the fight against forest fires continued to progress Wednesday evening in the intensive zone of fires in northwestern Quebec, the Society for the protection of forests against fire (SOPFEU) reported that in the northern zone, several claims were in progress.
In the most recent update of its operations, SOPFEU described the situation in the northern zone as worrying. Thursday morning, among the 129 fires that were active in Quebec, 88 were listed in the far north of Quebec. Fifteen of them were identified as priorities.
SOPFEU recalled that its mandate in the northern zone is to fight only fires threatening communities or strategic infrastructures. But due to the progression of certain disasters, measures have been taken to protect the access roads to the communities of Eastmain, Wemindji and Waskaganish, the Billy Diamond road, the North road, the Transtaïga and certain installations of Hydro-Québec, in particular those of LG3 and LG4, east of Radisson.
Ground or aerial firefighting operations were launched, with several fires spiraling out of control.
On the rest of the territory, in the zone called intensive protection, 41 fires were active Thursday morning and SOPFEU considered that the situation had stabilized. No fire was considered out of control and there were only three priority fires left, two on the North Shore and the other in Jamésie. Twelve fires have still not been attacked, but they did not put any community or infrastructure to the test, according to SOPFEU.
The organization said work to bring the fires under control was progressing. Wildland firefighters were at work on the edge of the fires and used a variety of fighting techniques, including ground spray and controlled burning.
Spraying from helicopters and air tankers was also carried out, while the technique of thermovision was used on the fires in order to detect hot spots and extinguish them.