A warning coming from areas impacted by the wildfires in Nova Scotia: stay out.
After a tough two weeks, onlookers and photo-snappers are being asked to give people privacy as they settle back into their homes or look to rebuild.
“If you hear a siren in the neighbourhood, right now, you’re on edge,” said Dustin O’Leary, president of the Westwood Hills Residents Association.
“I think everybody just needs to get their level of comfort back a little bit.”
During the peak of the Tantallon blaze, which broke out on May 28, more than 16,000 were forced to evacuate. Most have now been able to return home.
O’Leary said many are hoping for privacy as they settle back in or look to rebuild.
“Those are people’s homes, to start,” he said.
“The folks who are the most impacted still aren’t able to return — they still haven’t been back.
“The public, I can understand in a way why they would be interested, but hopefully, everybody has a little bit of second thought on just allowing the community that has been really damaged by this to grieve a little bit and to be together before everybody else comes in.”
There were 151 homes destroyed by the fire. Evacuation orders remain in three communities most heavily damaged by the wildfire.
O’Leary said people have been disappointed by the presence of onlookers.
“There were a variety of people who are upset, rightfully so, that there were so many people allowed to come through without any security or vetting,” he explained.
O’Leary said residents were also disappointed with the lifting of the evacuation order for Phase 3, saying there was less control and security when compared to previous phases.
He hopes that’s something HRM reviews and looks at improving should an emergency such as this unfold again.
Wildfire sites ‘not a tourist zone,’ mayor says
Halifax Mayor Mike Savage is urging people to stay out of the affected areas, saying: “It’s not a tourist zone, this is a home where people have lived.”
“People who have lost their homes, imagine what they’re going through,” Savage said. “Imagine if you were going through that. Would you want people driving by and taking pictures and making comments?”
Hammonds Plains – St. Margaret’s Councillor Pam Lovelace agrees.
“The community is asking people to just stay away,” she said. “You don’t need to go into the community just to look at burnt-out homes.”
Lovelace adds streets are already busy with contractors and support workers as the community rebuilds. Nova Scotia Power continues its work to reconnect properties.
But she understands why some need to see the damage.
“There’s a heightened awareness of what could happen in other neighbourhoods,” she said.
“People from outside are coming in to get a better understanding of how did this happen in the first place, could this happen in my neighbourhood? People, rightly so, are very concerned.”
There are also security concerns as a helicopter with the Department of Natural Resources and Renewables continues to monitor the region for hotspots.
Lovelace says that surveillance could last weeks if not months.
In a public service announcement, the city says checkpoints are in place around the areas that have not reopened. A combination of municipal staff and security are also on patrol.
Residents who do not live within the Tantallon and Hammonds Plains areas are asked to avoid traveling there to prevent traffic congestion.
O’Leary hopes those who don’t need to be there stay away so the community can grieve and heal together.
“If I could make a plea to everybody who, if you don’t need to be in there, don’t be right now,” he says. “So that everybody else who lives there, and who does need to be there, has the time just to get comfortable again.”