Hydro employees slowly start return to Churchill Falls as fire’s threat diminishes
As rainy and humid weather take a favourable turn in fighting raging forest fires threatening Churchill Falls, a Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro crew has been able to return to the plant.
“We are turning our attention to planning and preparing for residents to return to the community,” Hydro said in a statement posted on its website early Thursday evening.
About 750 people were ordered on June 19 to flee Churchill Falls, a company town that exists to keep Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro’s generating station running.
The remaining skeleton staff were forced to leave this Tuesday, after a raging forest fire jumped the Churchill River and moved closer. to the town and its power plant.
Hydro’s evacuation order remains in effect, but plans are underway for when people could return to the town, the Hydro statement said.
Hydro also announced it was sending a small team of critical personnel to Churchill Falls in order to look at health and safety factors, as well as to begin the initial preparations for more people to return.
“We will know more once they have had a chance to assess and we will continue to provide updates on next steps as available.”
The Crown corporation added it is working with provincial government officials to get back to the town.
“The fire has not reached your homes, the town buildings or infrastructure,” it read, adding the fire is within three to four kilometres from the town.
Environment Canada meteorologist Robert Grove said Churchill Falls is going to get a mix of sun and cloud on Friday, with temperatures rising to the mid-teens. Temperatures will drop at night.
“Tomorrow they’re going to get some showers. Not too too much, but still, we’ll take anything we can get,” Grove told CBC News.
He added Sunday will get more rain and throughout early next week it will be sunny and warm. “Hopefully that rain will be enough to get them to do a good job keeping that fire down,” he said.
According to Newfoundland and Labrador’s wildfire dashboard, there are nine fires burning in Labrador on Friday morning — down from Thursday morning’s count.
The Mount Hyde Lake fire is still listed as burning out of control and the Twin Falls fire is being held, maintaining its status over the last number of days.
Changing situation
Over the last number of days, the situation around Churchill Falls has varied, at times dramatically.
On Tuesday, the fire had jumped the Churchill River — which had been acting as a natural barrier keeping the flames from reaching the town — and prompted an order for the final workers to leave.
Recent rainfall, humidity and lower temperatures contributed in dramatically reducing the threat that an out-of-control forest fire in central Labrador has posed to one of North America’s largest power plants.
On Wednesday night, Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Andrew Furey posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, that Wednesday’s weather had a positive impact in efforts to fight the fire and it was now a Level 1 fire.
It’s a significant drop from the Level 5 and Level 6 categories from earlier this week, when managers fully evacuated the Upper Churchill hydroelectric power plant.
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