The fire burning near Kirkland Lake, Ontario is continuing to grow, prompting emergency services to plan how to evacuate areas of Kirkland Lake if necessary.

Right now the fire is 3 kilometres from town and is 2757 ha in size.  If the fire moves to within 1 km of Kirkland Lake, then evacuations will be announced.

If an evacuation is necessary, it is likely the citizens will be moved south because there are several fires of concern burning to the north, especially in the Timmins area.

An Emergency Area Order has been declared for some areas of Kirkland Lake, limiting access to all forest roads and crown land. (view the emergency order)

A total of 300 people have been evacuated from Goldthorpe road (West side of Kirkland Lake), Goodfish Lake and other northerly lakes.

For information regarding evacuation and road closures in the Kirkland Lake area, please call the Kirkland Lake Municipal Office at 705-568-9365 ext. 221.

Ontario’s Northeast Region

Currently there are 45 active fires in the province of Ontario, 17 of which are listed as Not Under Control. There are 28,870 hectares burning in the province, predominantly in the Northeast Region.

The Timmins 09 fire is now 21,088 ha in size. Karen Passmore, a spokesperson with the Ministry of Natural Resources in Timmins, said they’re, “really concerned …about the changing wind direction and whether or not it will push the fire towards town.” This fire grew significantly overnight and is now 45km in length.

Highway 101 is closed near Timmins due to fire. Another fire near Gogama has closed a section of Highway 144. For highway closure information, please call the OPP at 1-888-310-1122

To see Ontario’s current fires on a map, visit Current Forest Fire Situation in Ontario

Read more:
Current Fire Situation (Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources)
The latest from CJKL in Kirkland Lake (on Facebook)
Kirkland Lake prepares for evacuation (CBC)