Nova Scotia·NewDue to dangerous conditions, crews haven’t been able to travel to some areas to observe whether homes have been damaged by the fire in the West Dalhousie, N.S., area.Additional fire crews and management team arriving in province on Wednesday to provide respiteAnjuli Patil · CBC News · Posted: Aug 26, 2025 5:08 PM EDT | Last Updated: 36 minutes agoWildfire forces more Nova Scotians to flee their homesThe Long Lake wildfire has forced over one thousand people to flee their homes. Some of them have been displaced for as long as two weeks and the wait to return home is taking an emotional toll. Andrew Lam has the story.Volatile conditions are preventing officials from determining how many homes have been lost or damaged in the out-of-control wildfire burning in Annapolis County, N.S.Premier Tim Houston confirmed Monday that some homes had been destroyed or damaged after a harrowing weekend in which the Long Lake fire more than doubled in size, forcing an expanded evacuation order now affecting more than 1,000 people.In an update Tuesday, Nova Scotia’s director of regional operations for the Department of Emergency Management told reporters conditions remain too dangerous for crews to get in and evaluate the damage in some areas.”That north side of the fire, it’s still really hot and smoky and a lot of dangerous trees and stuff because … the ground is so dry, it has taken that layer off and it just makes really dangerous conditions to get in there right now to make good assessments,” Andrew Mitton said.Mitton said his team will await clearance from the Department of Natural Resources before moving in to get a measure of the damage.”They’re the professionals and they’re the folks that are in there right now making it safe so we can get in there,” he said.Homeowners who’ve lost property will be informed directly by Municipality of the County of Annapolis officials, Mitton said.The county said Tuesday that about 500 civic addresses in the West Dalhousie area have been evacuated and that it has almost completed contacting those homeowners known to have lost their homes in the blaze. The county said it is helping those residents with their insurances processes and it expects an update on property loss in the coming days.Jason Burton had to leave his home in Annapolis County on Aug. 14 because of the wildfire. He learned Monday an outbuilding on his property was damaged. (CBC)Jason Burton was part of the first series of evacuations on Aug. 14, a day after the fire broke out. He told CBC News Network in an interview Tuesday that a municipal representative had contacted him Monday about damage on his property.”The county had called us early in the morning about 10:30 yesterday and told us that there might be possible damage, there might not be anything, or it might be a total loss, of course. And then we waited all afternoon until probably about 4:30, 4:45 p.m. and got the call that the house was still fine. But one of our outbuildings was damaged,” Burton said.He said he was “happy and grateful” to hear his house wasn’t damaged.”I’m glad that we are all safe and the house is still standing as of today,” Burton said.Not enough rain to lift restrictionsOn Tuesday, the size of the wildfire was estimated at 8,026 hectares or about 80 square kilometres. There are six active wildfires in Nova Scotia, but only the one at Long Lake is considered out of control.On Tuesday evening, Natural Resources announced on social media the Susies Lake wildfire that started Aug. 12 near Bayers Lake Business Park in Halifax has been “fully extinguished.”Jim Rudderham, director of fleet and forest protection for Natural Resources, said the rain that fell Monday helped in firefighting efforts but wasn’t significant enough to lift the province’s woods ban or fire restrictions.Officials said the rain that fell on Monday wasn’t enough to lift the province’s woods ban or fire restrictions. (Anjuli Patil/CBC)”That rain is nice, we’ll take it. Parts of the province got much more rain than the fire but it’s still a nice little reprieve from what we had faced on Sunday,” Rudderham said.”It’s still not enough rain, even in the places that got the most rain, to significantly wet the province to make it better to even start to lift any of the restrictions or bans right now.”About 30 to 50 millimetres of rain fell along the Atlantic coastline and into northeastern Nova Scotia between Monday and Tuesday morning, CBC meteorologist Ryan Snoddon said. (Ryan Snoddon/CBC)Snoddon said heavier pockets of rain fell in the Halifax area and into Cape Breton, especially in the Boularderie Island, Englishtown and Baddeck areas.But the West Dalhousie area, he said, “likely picked up just a few millimetres, with three millimetres recorded at the Milford and Greenwood stations and eight millimetres recorded at the New Germany station, which would be closest to the fire.”Given the drought conditions in Nova Scotia, Rudderham said the Long Lake fire could go on for a while.’This is going to be a long incident'”This is going to be a long incident, so we are trying to balance our resources,” Rudderham said.Additional fire crews and a management team will be arriving in Nova Scotia on Wednesday to assist, he said. “Our crews definitely need a rest, our incident management teams need a rest and this will give us some time to get a little bit of rest because they’ve been going flat out for much longer than this incident has been going because they’ve been trying to protect our province for a long time against other fires.”Community pulls togetherOn Tuesday, there were 62 firefighters from Ontario, 56 Natural Resources firefighters, 54 volunteer firefighters and more than 30 pieces of heavy equipment fighting the wildfire, in addition to 43 Natural Resources staff working in support roles.Burton said community members have pulled together and helped one another out, and he’s grateful for the support they’re receiving.”They’re doing everything they possibly can with meals and housing and gift cards for fuel, gift cards for food. It’s been an amazing experience on that side of things. So it does help to ease your mind a bit that people are pulling for you,” he said.Some of that support for evacuees has come through a Salvation Army donation centre set up in Bridgetown, N.S.”This morning our pet food table was pretty empty and we made a post on social [about what was needed] … I came back a couple of hours later and the tables were full,” said Maj. Leslie Wiseman, a Salvation Army officer.Wiseman estimated about $10,000 in gift cards had been received.ABOUT THE AUTHORAnjuli Patil is a reporter with CBC Nova Scotia’s digital team.With files from CBC News Network and Danielle Edwards
‘Really dangerous conditions’ hindering efforts to assess fire damage: N.S. officials
