The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.
Size of blaze smaller than originally projected
Sunday brought a welcome sigh of relief for Timmins residents as rain and cooler tempertures helped to reduce the size of the Timmins 9 forest fire. The blaze, just 30 kilometres outside the city centre, is 70 kilometres long and has consumed thousands of hectares of forest west of Timmins.
Despite the positive outlook today, Timmins Mayor Tom Laughren offered some grounding words at Sunday’s press conference.
“Yes, the fire has shrunk in size, from a community perspective this is a relief,” he said. “But we need to remember the size of this fire, remember that it will take more than a days water bombing and a days rainfall to control it.”
With the addition of 20 new four-man crews from British Columbia working the southern flank of the fire, just north of Gogama, the Ontario fire rangers have been able to concentrate their efforts on the northeastern flank on the Kenogamissi and Cache areas, saving every residence and cottage in the area, only losing a couple of sheds and a vehicle.
“From a firefighting perspective, the rangers are doing a great job,” Laughren said. “They are doing everything they can to protect the properties and structures of evacuated persons and they’ve saved the majority of them.
“Every team, every municipal and federal body, everyone involved has been doing a great job keeping the community safe and informed.”
The sprinkler systems set up by the MNR fire crews have been successful in protecting the houses and cottages in the Kenogamissi area, but the Timmins Police Service’s Shannon Del Guidice offered a warning to the members of the community gathered in the McIntyre auditorium.
“We must remember that this is only May. We need to think about how we use fire, I am speaking to the people who use the bush,” she said. “To the people who are in the bush right now, remember what can happen, use Timmins No. 9 as an example, keep your fires the proper size, something that you can handle, think of the impact that one bad decision can have.”
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