Ocean lifeline saved N.S. lobster pound cut off for 13 days by wildfires

The situation was bleak.

The wildfire wasmoving closer and there were $5 million worth of live lobsters in tanks with no power, no refrigeration, no water circulation and no way to get fuel for the generators.

"And the roads are closed. The roads were on fire. So it's not like we could say, 'wow, just let us bring a truck in.' So we had to find a Plan B," recalled Greg Sutcliffe, plant manager at the Fisherman's Market lobster pound at Ingomar on the tip of southern Nova Scotia.

It was one of two Fisherman's Market operations on the coast inside the Shelburne County fire evacuation zone.

At Ingomar, Plan B was to get there by boat.

For Sutcliffe andhis company'shead office in Halifax, as well astheir parent company, Liverpool-based Mersey Seafoods,that meant arranging daily trips to the plant by sea to make sure the generators were working. On two occasions, deliveries by sea of 8,000 litres of diesel fuel kept the generators running.

Tense missions

"It was smoke, smoke, smoke and red glows," recalled Sutcliffe, who had to provide firefighters with a head count on the way in and out of Ingomar.

"It was like the fog rolling in, yet with particles in it."

On the first trip, diesel was pumped off the boat with a portable generator and transferred in containers.

On the second trip, a small backhoe lifted1,000-litre containers off the boat and carried them to the plant. A forklift hoisted thecontainers and used gravity to fill the tanks.

"This isn't anything even remotely part of what you would normally do in a day, but that's what we had to do," Sutcliffe said.

He was often accompanied by the plant's Filipino temporary foreign workers.

They never signed up for the emergency evacuations, the enveloping smoke, or the seasickness that some experienced during one of the deliveries, with 8,000 litres of diesel fuel sloshing around in tanks on the back of a fishing boat in three-metre seas.

"It's our first time to experience that kind of waves and we thought the boat [would] sink," recalled James Ballesceas, one of the Filipino workers.

"About the wildfire, all I can say is that it's unusual in the Philippines. We see it on TV and now we experience that kind of disaster and it's so terrifying. In my mind, we [got] lucky that our company, our house they didn't [burn]."

Sutcliffe and seven Filipino workerswere moved twice during the emergency. First in the initial evacuation, and again when fire sprang up where they had relocated in Sandy Point, N.S.

During the crisis, Sutcliffe carried on after being told his own house had been destroyed by fire incorrectly, as it turned out.

Workers at Fisherman's Market plant at Blanche, N.S. on the neighbouring peninsula were also ordered out of their homes.

That plant holds live lobster and more than 750,000 pounds of frozen seafood.

It too lost power.

"Well, you pray that generator starts, and it did," said plant manager Carl Townsend.

At least Blanche was accessible by road.

Every morning,plant workers like Townsend fishermen needing to get gear and the occasional fuel truck would assemble in the Barrington area and leave under escort for the various wharves and lobster plants inside the fire zone.

Fisherman's Market was one of several seafood companies with coastal operations inside the fire zone.

Working to save the business

"There [were] always lights flashing. [It] made you feel kind of special for the wrong reason," Townsend said.

Like others working inside the fire zone to save their businesses, Townsend spoke of the choking smoke in the area.

Townsend says two things worried him: running out of fuel until the convoys got rolling and the generator. TheWi-Fiwas down, so there was no way to remotely check the cameras installed at the facility.

The generator did stop once, but it was fixed before temperatures rose too high.

In the end, both Fisherman's Market plants pulled through. No one was hurt, the product survived and jobs were saved.

'Almost like a euphoria'

"I don't think there's words that describe it. It's almost like a euphoria. Just quite a weight lifted," said Fisherman's Market president Monte Snow, who oversaw operations back in Halifax.

Snow said the Mersey Seafood companies rallied.

Shelburne Ship Repair served as sea base for deliveries to Ingomar until Shelburne harbour was closed to marine traffic to make room for water bombers.

Scotia Harvest, a groundfish and scallop company in Digby, helped arrange fuel deliveries into Blanche through West Nova Fuels. Scotia's shipyard also sent in tanks, pipes and plumbing.

"It wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for the collective teamwork," Snow said.

"It just would have been impossible for one facility to do it on its own or the other facility without the support of Scotia and Mersey, and shipyards and the fishers and very dedicated crew."

Cooke Aquaculture, through its subsidiaryKelly Cove Salmon, also chipped in to help in Ingomar. Its Shelburne aquaculture vessel delivered 2,000 litres of diesel.