![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1755297308_95_john-hogan.jpeg\")
Premier John Hogan says he hopes air support can once again be in the skies over Conception Bay North on Friday. (Patrick Butler\/Radio-Canada)<\/p>\nPremier John Hogan says he hopes air support can once again be in the skies over Conception Bay North on Friday. (Patrick Butler\/Radio-Canada)<\/p>\n
Latest updates:<\/p>\n
Kingston fire is now\u00a09,838 hectares. Paddy’s Pond fire is 318 hectares. Martin Lake fire is 2,160 hectares. Evacuation order lifted for Paddy’s Pond industrial area Friday evening. Evacuation\u00a0order lifted for Three Island Pond area in Paradise on Friday afternoon. Cabot Academy elementary school in Western Bay destroyed. Air quality warning in effect for\u00a0northern Avalon Peninsula and St. John’s area. Evacuation alert issued for Job’s Cove, on the north side of Conception Bay. About 100 homes destroyed by Kingston fire, including at least 33 homes in Small Point-Broad Cove-Blackhead-Adam’s Cove, and at least 10 homes in the community of Kingston.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Air support was grounded Friday morning, as the Kingston fire in Conception Bay North continued to grow and burn out of control at 9,838 hectares.<\/p>\n
“Weather conditions can dictate what we do, and this is the first day we’ve had low ceilings, there’s low ceilings right now,” Premier John Hogan\u00a0told reporters on Friday during a live update that began at 10:15 a.m NT.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“As of this moment the air assets are unable to get to the Kingston fire, and they can’t fly. But we will continue to monitor that throughout the day.”<\/p>\n
However, Hogan said the weather conditions improved on Friday. He said the drop in temperature, forecasted rain and shifting winds could help\u00a0fire suppression.<\/p>\n
He said there were 80 Canadian Armed Forces firefighters and 20 Ontario firefighters helping with the effort on the fire’s northern flank, working to protect structures and put out hot spots.<\/p>\n
Job’s Cove residents remained on\u00a0evacuation alert Friday morning.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Safety is first priority<\/p>\n
Craig Coady, director of the province’s wildfire program, said the\u00a0first priority is the safety of people. After that,\u00a0it’s\u00a0protecting properties and infrastructure.<\/p>\n
“The question we have to ask ourselves when planning out operations each day: Are we putting our\u00a0first responders or our citizens at undue risk?”\u00a0<\/p>\n
Coady said\u00a0they have to look at the conditions when deciding how to fight a fire, and the low ceiling in the St. John’s area meant aerial support couldn’t fly.<\/p>\n
Cabot Academy destroyed<\/p>\n
Education Minister Bernard Davis said the Kingston fire destroyed Cabot Academy elementary school in Western Bay.<\/p>\n
“This is certainly a massive loss for the community, but we are here to support the school community, and provide as much information and support as we possibly can,” Davis said.<\/p>\n
He said students and staff will have a place to go in the new school year.<\/p>\n
Everyone affected will be contacted in the coming days with more information, Davis\u00a0said.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, he\u00a0said he doesn’t anticipate any delays to the school year for students and staff returning to schools that were being used to support evacuees and firefighters.<\/p>\n
Evacuation orders lifted for Three Island Pond, Paddy’s Pond<\/p>\n
As for the Paddy’s Pond fire, Hogan said it was about 306 hectares and was still very smoky with hot spots.<\/p>\n
He was hopeful\u00a0cooler\u00a0temperatures and about five millimetres of rain would help fire suppression.<\/p>\n
He said helicopters would drop buckets of water on the fire on Friday,\u00a0and there were 30 ground crew on site. He said\u00a0the fire guard construction was also going well.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/helicopter-getting-water.jpg\")
Hogan says helicopters are being used to fight the Paddy\u2019s Pond fire on Friday. (Mark Crosby\/CBC)<\/p>\n
Shortly after 6 p.m. NT on Friday, the City of St. John’s lifted the evacuation order for the Paddy’s Pond industrial area, and reopened Northern Pond Road and Paddy’s Pond Road. The area remained\u00a0under an evacuation alert, as did the Galway and Southlands\u00a0neighbourhoods of St. John’s.<\/p>\n
At 12:30 p.m. NT on Friday, the Town of Paradise announced the evacuation order for the Three Island Pond area was lifted, and residents could return home. However, the area was placed on an evacuation alert, along with the other parts of the town which were previously put on alert.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0areas of Paradise under an evacuation alert on Friday included the portion of Paradise\u00a0on the south side of Topsail Road from the Outer Ring Road exit to the Conception Bay South\u00a0boundary, including the Three Island Pond area.<\/p>\n
Martin Lake area cabins sprayed down<\/p>\n
Hogan said the Martin Lake fire was 2,190 hectares in size Friday morning.<\/p>\n
He\u00a0expected cooler temperatures and rainfall would help suppress the fire, but the\u00a0Bay d’Espoir Highway remained closed until further notice.<\/p>\n
“Cabins in the area were sprayed down, and we continue to assess the impact on the Rushy Pond cabins,” Hogan said.<\/p>\n
He said four helicopters, a bird dog and two water bombers would be on site Friday, as well as a\u00a0ground crew.<\/p>\n
Another fine issued<\/p>\n
Hogan\u00a0said there was an illegal fire in Gander on Thursday, so another $50,000 fine was issued for violating the provincewide fire ban.<\/p>\n
RCMP Chief Supt.\u00a0Pamela Robinson said the police were investigating fires, and asked people to report suspicious behaviour.<\/p>\n
“Actions have consequences,” she said.<\/p>\n
Robinson said people could face serious penalties, including\u00a0tickets, fines and jail time.<\/p>\n
Air quality warnings<\/p>\n
The heat warning issued by Environment Canada that had been in effect for several days was\u00a0lifted, but an air quality warning\u00a0due to the Kingston and Paddy’s Pond fires was in effect for the northern Avalon Peninsula and St. John’s area on Friday.<\/p>\n
Meteorologist Justin Boudreau\u00a0said there was more smoke coming from the Kingston fire rather than the Paddy’s Pond fire.<\/p>\n
“The trick will be this evening when the\u00a0winds shift from southerly to northerly, the plume from the Kingston fire is probably going to sweep across the Avalon,” he said.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/atlantic-wildfires-20250813.jpg\")
A water bomber drops water onto a wildfire burning in the Paddy’s Pond area just outside St. John’s, N.L., on Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS\/Elling Lien (The Canadian Press)<\/p>\n
There will likely be a brief period of low air quality Friday evening in the St. John’s metro area, and areas south of the fire, he said.<\/p>\n
Boudreau\u00a0said between two to four millimetres of rain was expected to fall over the region on Friday,\u00a0adding\u00a0there was a good chance of thunderstorms moving across the island, which\u00a0might bring rainfall.<\/p>\n
He said periods of drizzle were expected\u00a0overnight\u00a0until Saturday morning, with\u00a0temperatures\u00a0dipping as well.<\/p>\n
“What the showers will do \u2014 not entirely sure. It may improve things for sort of Friday night into Saturday, but I would expect it’s probably not going to be enough to put that fire out.”<\/p>\n
An air quality statement was also in effect for parts of central Newfoundland due to the Martin Lake fire.<\/p>\n
Download our\u00a0free CBC News app<\/a>\u00a0to sign up for push alerts for CBC Newfoundland and Labrador. Sign up for our\u00a0daily headlines newsletter here<\/a>. Click\u00a0here to visit our landing page<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Premier John Hogan says he hopes air support can once again be in the skies over Conception Bay…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72646,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-72645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}