Some 400 residents of Chapais were instructed on Wednesday to evacuate the village in northern Quebec and go to Chibougamau, about forty kilometers away, because of the threat posed by a major fire.
“We are in the process of evacuating half of the municipality which is at risk for this night”, affirmed in the evening the mayor of Chapais, Isabelle Lessard. The fire broke out in the afternoon, around 2 p.m., and first forced the evacuation of vacationers in the vicinity of Chapais, in the Lac Cavan and Lac de la Presqu’île sectors. Access to these areas has since been closed.
“We prefer not to take a chance”, explained Mme Lessard, saying that the city of Chibougamau was ready to “welcome those evacuated for the night”.
“There have been evacuations because the fire started at a resort in the Lake Cavan area. There is a Sûreté du Québec command post at City Hall,” said Josée Poitras, prevention and communications officer for the Society for the Protection of Forests against Fire (SOPFEU) in a telephone interview Wednesday evening. .
Around 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, the City of Chapais informed its population on its Facebook page that citizens residing in the southern part of the municipality (Manoir Pierre-Guénette side) are called upon to be evacuated.
“It is important to wait for the visit of the firefighters or the Sûreté du Québec to confirm your evacuation. Otherwise, you must register at one of the checkpoints at the east and west exits of the City, the message said. Evacuated citizens are invited to go to the Chibougamau arena […] on Park Avenue. »
“Despite our attempts with tankers today (Wednesday), it didn’t work because the fire is too intense. It is currently estimated at an area of 1,400 hectares of burned forest, ”said the SOPFEU spokesperson.
“The fire still shows a very significant behavior and could be large in area,” said Josée Poitras, prevention and communications officer for the Center sector of the Society for the Protection of Forests against Fire (SOPFEU).
Half-hearted reactions
On the ground, the pulse of the residents of Chapais is variable, affirms the mayor of the municipality of 1300 souls. “One part of the people is convinced that everything will be fine, she says, and the other is a little more worried. »
Faced with the uncertainty, many people therefore took care to fill up with gas or stormed the grocery stores. In the opinion of M.me Lessard, there is no need to panic, although this situation is “out of the ordinary”. The evacuation is done as a precaution and to alleviate the uncertainty caused by the changing winds in the region, she explains.
“We try to keep households as well informed as possible, but we certainly don’t have all the information either. »
The situation is improving in Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean
Meanwhile, the situation is improving in Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean, where two forest fires are now under control and a third contained.
Thirty people were able to return to their homes on Wednesday, a few hours after being evacuated on Wednesday to Rivière-Éternité, a municipality of 413 inhabitants.
“This afternoon, we had an alert in the Rivière-Éternité sector. It is a fire that we have just contained very fortunately because the fire was close to the communities. There were evacuations, but people were able to return home,” said Josée Poitras.
Four tanker planes had been deployed there and the forest firefighters will continue the work on Thursday.
Earlier Wednesday, these same tanker planes were at work in the municipalities of Ferland-et-Boilleau and Saint-André-du-Lac-Saint-Jean, where the forest fires are now under control.
More than 20 forest firefighters were deployed at each of the three forest fire sites in the region.
With The Canadian Press