Largest wildfire continues to gain ground in eastern Newfoundland

The sun is visible as an orange ball over Victoria, NL. Forest fires have closed roads and caused mandatory evacuations from several communities along the Avalon Peninsula in Conception Bay North, N.L., Tuesday, Aug. 5, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Daly

SMALL POINT-ADAM’S COVE-BLACKHEAD-BROAD COVE — He has no official confirmation, but Luo Xu is certain his family’s evacuated home in eastern Newfoundland has been destroyed by wildfire.

On Saturday night, he watched live images from a security camera showing smoke and then flames filling the screen before going blank.

“I don’t think any words could ever be able to describe my feelings about watching our own house burning,” Xu said in an interview Monday.

At the time, there were seven active wildfires in the province – five in Newfoundland and two in Labrador. Of the four burning out of control, the fire that entered Western Bay was by far the largest. As of Saturday, about 3,000 people had been told to leave their homes.

Xu said it appears his home, which he shared with his wife and two young children, burned down Saturday around 6 p.m. “The camera sits inside the house, right by the front window, so I know it’s gone. Even if it’s not fully gone, it’s badly burned. It will be a total loss.”

Provincial officials said Monday that thick smoke in the communities along the northwestern shore of Conception Bay, like Western Bay, has prevented them from being able to count the number of destroyed homes and other structures.

A week ago, Xu and his family were told to evacuate their home for the second time this wildfire season. They were told to leave back in May when an earlier wildfire threatened the area.

Xu and his family are now staying in the neighbouring town of Carbonear.

“The evacuation centre, it’s like a big family,” he said. ”We all go there and have a little chat and just try to be positive. We will try to get through this disaster together.”

Meanwhile, provincial fire duty officer Mark Lawlor said the fire in question started over a week ago near the coastal town of Kingston, N.L., and has since expanded to about 52 square kilometres.

At Ochre Pit Cove, about 13 kilometres north of Kingston, the local Red Ochre Cafe is now a firefighting command post. Cafe owner Ray Dwyer said most of his neighbours are worried about their homes.

“It’s scary for everybody,” he said in an interview. “Everyone’s evacuated and they don’t know how their properties are. Half the north shore here is scorched. It’s strange when you go up the road and there’s not a person, not an animal. It’s just pretty desolate.”

The picturesque hamlet was evacuated last Monday.

Dwyer, who has managed the cafe for six years, said his 13 local employees are out of a job, and electricity in the area has been cut off.

“I had five great big freezers full and I have to go throw it away,” he said. “The worst part about it is my employees have no income. It’s got me killed that I can’t help them.”

Dwyer said local firefighters have had to deal with very thick smoke.

“The fire departments have had their asses worked off here, and hats off to all the volunteers,” he said. “All of these firefighters are volunteers.”

In the tiny community of Freshwater, N.L., just south of the areas evacuated by the Kingston fire, 60-year-old resident Bonnie Parsons said she had never before experience such a hot, dry summer.

She said the grass in her community is so dry it “scrunches beneath your feet.”

“If we get one week out of the whole summer where it’s warm and sunny, that’s it. We are not used to this weather.”

Parsons, who helps entertain local seniors at fundraisers, said she had recently visited some older evacuees who are staying at a school in Carbonear.

“It’s devastating,” she said. “They are sitting there … and they don’t know if they’ve got anything to go back to.”

Premier John Hogan told a briefing in St. John’s that crews battling the Kingston fire were dealing with the same high winds and soaring temperatures that helped spread the fire on the weekend.

“The firefighters and heavy equipment are continuing to work … to expand the fuel break on the southern edge of the fire,” he said.

The premier and his officials were unable to say how many homes or other buildings had been lost to the fires. And they could not provide an update on the number of evacuees still out of their homes.

Hogan said two additional water bombers from Ontario were expected to arrive Monday. And he confirmed that the Canadian Armed Forces would be increasing the number of its firefighters from 40 to 80 by Tuesday.

In Prince Edward Island, the provincial government banned all types of open fires Monday, including campfires and bonfires. The ban applies to private property and all provincial parks. All brush burning permits were recently revoked.

Those caught violating the ban face a fine up to $50,000.

“With forest fires burning in other provinces and the hot, dry weather continuing in P.E.I., we need to take every possible step to keep residents and our forests safe,” Environment Minister Gilles Arsenault said in a statement.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 11, 2025.

By Lyndsay Armstrong in Halifax, with files from Keith Doucette and Michael MacDonald.