News release

Barrington Lake Wildfire Under Control

Natural Resources and Renewables

The Barrington Lake wildfire in Shelburne County is now under control.

The final size of the fire is 23,525 hectares (about 235 square kilometres). It is not expected to spread.

Firefighters from the Department of Natural Resources and Renewables (DNRR), the Department of National Defence, Newfoundland and Labrador, and the United States are still on the scene doing mop up. Volunteer and municipal firefighters are on call to help.

Mop up means firefighters start at the perimeter of the fire and advance toward the centre in a grid pattern to systematically extinguish hot spots. Tactics include looking and smelling for smoke, digging up hot spots and dousing them with water. Depending on the size of a fire, mop up can take days or weeks.

As weather allows, DNRR helicopters will be flying over wildfires in the province and using infrared scanners to detect hot spots. This will help ground crews fully extinguish the fires. The scanning will be done between 5 and 9 a.m. and could take up to a week.

Quick Facts:

  • people are asked to please remain away from all wildfire areas
  • people should not operate drones over active forest fires, even when they are under control; drones can interfere with the suppression effort and pose a danger to aircraft and first responders

Additional Resources:

Information about the wildfires: https://novascotia.ca/alerts/