Lessons learned from 2013 Lab West forest fire: Tell the 'real truth'

The mayor of Labrador City saysthe big lesson from the major forest fire that forced the evacuation of Wabush as itripped throughwestern Labrador in the spring of 2013 was to tell "the real truth."

"When you have to evacuate a community, or if you have to give people an order, make sure you tell them why, the real truth of why you're doing it," said Karen Oldford.

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Oldfordmade the comment to MunicipalitiesNewfoundland and Labradorin Gander in a presentation called theLessons Learned from the Labrador West Fires.

"[Wabush]decided as part of their [Emergency Operations Centre]that they were going to tell people they wereevacuatingbecause of smoke, and that smoke was going to get worse in their community overnight and into the next day and they were concerned about air quality. So weevacuated everybody to Labrador City," saidOldford.

The forest fire was at times just three kilometres from the Town of Wabush. An estimated 1,800 people were sent to Labrador City during the evacuation because of air quality concerns.

But the next morning, smoke from intense forest fires inQuebec blew into Labrador City.

Oldford said it looked like armageddon when she woke up to thick smoke and ash.The scenecreated panic among Labrador City residents concerned about the air quality, after they were told it was the reason for evacuationin the neighbouring town.

"And everybody then was beating us up. Like, 'Oh, my God what are yougoing to do? We're going to have to evacuate Labrador City now because you evacuated Wabush for air quality, now we need to go.' And it was really bad," said Oldford.

"If they had been truthful and said, 'We're evacuating you now because the potential is there that the fire could come right up the middle of the community tonight if the winds change,' it would have been much better," she said.

"Tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth always. As scary as that may be, it's better to tell the truth."

'Harrowing' process

People in Wabushwere allowed back into theirtown whenthe fire died down two nightsafter the evacuation.

Oldford's presentation also touched on how difficult it was to evacuate cabin areas during the start of the fire, calling it a "harrowing four-hour" process.

"Once the fire became close enough to the cabin areas we recognized we had a problem. We have people's lives in danger." said Oldford. "We actually got a call from the Royal NewfoundlandConstabulary saying 'We need some help.'"

Oldford said amateurradio operators played a key role in solving communication problems that made it hard to contactcabin owners to make sure the region was evacuated.

Red Cross volunteers

Judy Bond, who workswith the Canadian Red Cross,was sent to western Labrador to help organize volunteers.

"Never did I dream what I was flying into,'" said Bond.

"One of the lessons was 'don't wait.' We got in on the last flight that went into Wabush," said Bond.

She said there were only two volunteers on the ground in western Labrador when she she got there,and one was on vacation.

Bond said Wabush and Labrador City put out a call for volunteers to help in case a town needed to be evacuated.

"We had 110 people show up at the Arts and Culture Centre in LabradorCity to be trained in registration and inquiry," said Bond.

"Sometimes volunteers are perceived to not be professional but our volunteers are very professional, coming from varied backgrounds," she said, and their expertise was invaluable.

Once the evacuation order ended,the Canadian Red Cross stayed to continue training volunteers.

"And we stayed for several days after and then we finished off the training and now we have 40 trained volunteers in Labrador West," said Bond.