WEST LOON LAKE – Five Pictou County fire departments spent Sunday battling a blaze that broke out on West Loon Lake, threatening 25 cottages nestled along the shoreline.
Although West Loon Lake is technically located in the Halifax Regional Municipality, it's situated off the Dean Settlement Road, approximately 45 minutes from Stellarton, the entrance of which borders Guysborough and Pictou counties, prompting Sheet Harbour firefighters to call in Eureka, East River Valley, Plymouth, Westville and Stellarton fire department for assistance.
"We received a call for what I'd call a brush fire - there's not enough woods there to call in a wood fire," explained Eureka firefighter Cliff Jardine. "We responded and called in other departments for mutual aid."
Nearly 40 county firefighters joined the efforts of other local fire departments to put out the blaze. A conservative estimate had over an acre of land affected, with the fire being pushed along by gusting winds. Smoke could be seen towering into the sky from Eureka.
"With the wind, with the dry conditions and the overcut - this isn't an ideal situation," Jardine added.
A Department of Natural Resources helicopter, equiped with a device known as a 'belly bag,' swooped up water from the lake and dumped it on the fire as firefighters doused the cottages in the area as the fire came perilously close to the dwellings.
While most of the structures were cottages, said resident Earl Wilson, many of the cottagers lived in them nearly full-time.
"We're all concerned about our homes," Wilson said. "Although I've got to give the fire departments credit. It was no more than 25 minutes and the Upper Musquodoboit department was here."
The cottagers were evacuated and had little time to grab anything as they were rushed to safety, said Nancy MacDonald, who was staying at Wilson's cottage for the weekend.
"We packed some personal things and within 10 minutes of someone telling us about it, we could hear the flames. That's how fast it was," she said.
It was Cindy Crowell who first noticed the smoke and raised the alarm. She was four-wheeling with her son when she spotted the smoke, at first thinking it was a cottage on fire. She rushed to the Wilson cottage and called for help before moving on to alert other residents.
"It looked bad and the wind was moving it along quickly," she said, adding that the extreme dry conditions, combined with a large number of trees that had been knocked down by hurricane Juan in the area and clearcutting from the pulp mill made the situation worse.
Firefighters were on the scene again on Monday checking for hot spots and any fire that might have flared up again.
The Department of Natural Resources told The Canadian Press that 7.7 hectares of softwood and wood debris had burnt but several nearby cottages were no longer in danger.
With Canadian Press files
