‘Terrifying night’: North Frontenac homes evacuated during wildfire

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A North Frontenac Township family has been temporarily displaced by a wildfire that started on their property just southeast of Ompah on Sunday afternoon, and that fire is still not under control, according to the Ministry of Natural Resources.

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When the power went out shortly after 4 p.m. on Sunday in the home shared by Amanda Hale, her sons Ryder and Cole Turton, her ex-mother-in-law Hazel Cash and Cash’s son, the family discovered that a hydro line had gone down around 500 metres from their home.

When they saw smoke, the family called 911, but the fire spread quickly to the dry fields and forest around their home.

“My dad came in and said, ‘Get out, there’s a fire,’ ” Ryder Turton said. He was confused, but when he looked out the second-storey window and saw flames nearby, he took action.

“That’s when I knew (to) grab what I could and get out of the house,” Turton said. He picked up the things that meant something to him — two model trains, a book and a painting.

Hazel Cash grabbed the backpack full of essential documents that she had packed two years earlier, when another wildfire had threatened the region. At that time, the fire was never an imminent threat. This time it was different.

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“It was the most terrifying night of my life,” Cash admitted, sitting in the Snow Road Community Hall, around eight kilometres from her home. “You’re standing there, you’re absolutely helpless. You’re counting on these people, and you know that they’re professionals, and you know you have to trust them, but it’s hard because you don’t have any control.”

Firefighters continue to battle the fire, a statement from the Ministry of Natural Resources provided to the Whig-Standard said on Monday afternoon.

The fire — labelled the Haliburton 53 wildland fire on the MNR’s interactive fire map — is currently 40 hectares in size, the MNR said.

Two FireRanger crews — one four-person crew and one five-person crew — plus a fire management staff from the MNR’s Aviation, Forest Fire and Emergency Services “were assigned to support municipal firefighters,” the statement said.

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“This fire is located within the Township of North Frontenac (which is within a municipal protection area), more specifically west of Highway 509, approximately 0.5 km north of the intersection of Donaldson Road and highway 509,” the statement from MNR said. “It is located approximately 1 km southwest of Antoine Lake.”

Some of Cash’s family slept in the temporary evacuation centre set up at the Snow Road Community Hall, where neighbours brought food for them and checked in to make sure they were holding up after having to vacate their home so abruptly.

“We were just grabbing everything that we could that meant something to us. It was really hard,” Cash said. “I was taking pictures off the wall.”

Cash and her son — who didn’t want to be named or interviewed for this story — sat in the car near their house all night, watching fire crews work tirelessly to keep the flames from reaching their home.

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At one point, fire was visible on three sides, only metres from the house.

“It was very traumatic and very terrifying,” Cash said. “At one point, we were watching it jump the road.”

“The flames were higher than our (two-storey) house. The house is huge,” Amanda Hale said. “What saved us with the dry grass was that high wind. It was blowing north of us, so (the fire) moved at a slow crawl towards us.”

While there is not yet any reported damage to homes, Hale said that eventually the fire got away from fire crews and took off into thousands of acres of forested land owned by their neighbours.

“Last I heard, it was 500 metres wide and 2 kilometres long,” Hale said. “It turned into a forest fire.”

There are no official reports yet as to the size that the fire reached, but in an update at 1:45 p.m. on its website, North Frontenac Township said that the “recent rainfall has helped,” and the fire was then approximately 150 acres in size and that municipal and MNRF firefighters remained on the scene, working to “secure the perimeter of the fire.”

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At 8:30 p.m. on Sunday evening, North Frontenac Township posted that the Ontario Provincial Police was on the scene of the fire evacuating nearby homes, and advised people who needed shelter to travel to the Ompah Community Hall. The township also convened its Township Emergency Control Group.

Later that night, the township shared on its website that the Snow Road Community Hall opened for those needing shelter.

On Monday morning at 8:45 a.m., North Frontenac Township posted on its website that fire crews, including the Ministry of Natural Resources, would be on the scene of the fire throughout the day, and that OPP “continues to assess and will be involved if further evacuations are required.”

No one from the township was available to speak to the Whig-Standard on Monday.

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While representatives from the OPP didn’t want to speak to the Whig-Standard about their involvement with the fire response, they maintained a social media presence during the fire.

“Thankfully there have been no reports of injuries or serious damage so far from a wildfire along Road 509 between Ompah and Mississippi Station,” the Ontario Provincial Police – East Region Facebook page posted on Monday morning. “Our thoughts are with those who had to evacuate their homes as a precaution.”

The OPP post stated that Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources crews were “evaluating the area this morning, but it sounds as if the heavy rain overnight definitely helped the situation.”

One officer with the Frontenac Detachment assisted with evacuations, and in another post on the OPP East Region’s X account, a Lennox & Addington County OPP officer “went above and beyond” when he drove to an evacuated home to rescue a resident’s dog. The dog was later reunited with its owner at the Ompah Community Hall evacuation Centre, the post said.

“This is a wonderful community,” Cash said, expressing her gratefulness to firefighters who saved her home.

North Frontenac Township emergency services and Hydro One did not respond to requests for comment before deadline.

The Whig-Standard will update the story as more information becomes available.

mbalogh@postmedia.com

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