The mayor of Chapais, Isabelle Lessard, and Rémi Barriault, manager of major fire teams at SOPFEU
The advisory therefore remains in effect for the approximately 800 residents evacuated Wednesday evening in this municipality of Nord-du-Québec.
The mayor of Chapais, Isabelle Lessard, held a press briefing at 5 p.m.
Unfortunately, we maintain the recommendation not to return home for the south side and of course the affected resort sides. The reason, in fact, is that we would like to finish the mechanized stop line first to really be more sure that it is safe for the citizens, she explained .
This one is 90% complete and stretches over four kilometres. It aims to protect the southern portion of Chapais.
SOPFEU is still working to put out the forest fire in Chapais.
Teams will continue their work in the field until late Friday evening and will resume Saturday morning.
As for the fire that has been raging since Wednesday evening, Isabelle Lessard indicated that it is in the process of being contained. It therefore remains uncontrolled for the moment.
There was no significant expansion of the fire, rejoiced Rémi Barriault, manager of major fire teams for the Society for the Protection of Forests against Fire (SOPFEU).
The area therefore remained at 1400 hectares.
Transports Québec was installing signs on Friday at the entrance to the R1009 forest road, from Route 167. This road leads to the community of Oujé-Bougoumou.
It's the same resources that take care of the fire, but we had the additional support of tanker planes all day, he continued by report to the morning.
Thus, three teams of tanker planes intervened in rotation at different places of the blaze.
The Sûreté du Québec (SQ) teams are still present, but there was no spokesperson at the press briefing. The cause of the five fires in the area is still to be determined.
Furthermore, since few people needed to be accommodated at the Chibougamau arena for the first two nights, it is not necessary to keep this emergency center for the moment. Only a few dozen people were present the first evening: many people had used other solutions, such as visiting relatives.
Today during the day, we has made the decision to close it, the mayor announced, adding that it could be reopened if necessary.
The next information should be released on Saturday around 9 a.m. x27;opportunity for another press briefing.
With information from Myriam Gauthier and Annie-Claude Brisson
< source srcset="https://images.radio-canada.ca/q_auto,w_115/v1/personnalites-rc/1x1/pascal-girard.png" media="(min-width: 0px) and (max-width: 99999px)"/>
