'It takes the life out of you': CBN fire chief and residents reflect on a month of devastation

When Roger Gillingham’s pager went off on Aug. 3, he thought it would be a normal fire call. 

It was one of many the North Shore Volunteer Fire Department received over the summer. Almost a dozen fires started in their jurisdiction from April to August, including one in Adam’s Cove that destroyed 12 homes. 

“I don't think that as of Sunday afternoon that we thought it was going to go where it went,” Gillingham said.

But that sunny Sunday afternoon, the unthinkable happened — a fire in the woods that would lead to a month-long evacuation across nine communities. 

The fire started in Kingston and burned for about three weeks in August. It burned over 10,000 hectares, spanning the 16 kilometres to Northern Bay, and torching nearly 200 homes.

“Monday it became clearer that this was going to be a bigger fire than we thought, and we needed to get people on the move,” Gillingham said. 

They put calls into neighbouring towns, and soon a fire brigade of over a dozen volunteer departments were on the scene.

Gillingham joined the fire service in 1987, right out of university. And he became the fire chief of the North Shore Volunteer Fire Department in the early 2000s. 

But with almost four decades of experience, he said the Kingston fire was something he’s never seen before. 

“It was very evident that this was going to turn into a disastrous fire,” Gillingham said. 

Teams of provincial and federal firefighters, along with water bomber operators and search and rescue teams would eventually join the ranks of first responders. 

Schools in Victoria and Carbonear became sanctuary for hundreds of evacuees with nowhere else to go.

For weeks, communities of people were left to wonder just how bad the damage would be. 

“We were seeing things happen in front of our eyes that we had absolutely no control over,” Gillingham said.