Highway 631 reopens, special air statement in effect as forest fires remain within 10 km of White River

The highway between White River and Hornepayne, Ont., has reopened again Wednesday morning as twolarge out-of-controlwildfires burn in the area.

Wawa fires twoand three ignited over the weekend and bracket the community. Smoke from the fires has closed Highway 631 several times since Monday. The highway remained closed for much of Tuesday evening and overnight, but reopened shortly after 5 a.m. Wednesday.

Wawa 2 coversover 100 hectares,and is located sixkilometres west of White River.

Wawa3, meanwhile, has grown to cover4,800 hectares and is ninekilometres east of White River.

Officials say the latest updates on highway closures and fire conditions are being posted to Ontario 511 and on the Ontario Provincial Police social media feeds.

Environment Canada has issued a special air quality statement over the smoke, as well as a heat warning, with temperatures expected to reach 30 C Wednesday, before rain is in the forecast later on in the week.

On Tuesday afternoon, White River Mayor Tara Anderson Hart said smoke was still minimal in her community.

"It's pretty clear," she told CBC News shortly after 5 p.m. Tuesday."I can see a lot of blue sky. The wind is gusting a bit, which is most likely going to cause some issues with the way the fire goes."

The fires prompted another closure of Highway 631 between White River and Hornepayneon Tuesday afternoon. It was the second time the highway had closed this week: it was also shut down Monday evening, and re-opened shortly before noon on Tuesday.

It was closed again beginning about 2 p.m. Tuesday. The highway reopened briefly on Tuesday night around 9 p.m., before closing again until Wednesday morning.

Anderson Hart said the closure, and the fires, arecausing problems for the area's mining industry.

"The Silver Lake Mine is up Highway 631," she said. "They actually evacuated the mine site yesterday because of smoke."

"By 6:30 p.m. last night I believe they had everybody off site, although this morning they were able to send a small crew back in to do an assessment and get their care and maintenance program up and running."

Meanwhile travellers in the area are required to take a longer route along Highway 11 due to the closure.

"I know they had to escort a fuel truck through to the Hornepayne community this morning," Anderson Hart said. "There was zerovisibility, so they had police escort on a closed road to ensure that the residents in Hornepaynewill have fuel."

Anderson Hart said there are a "wide variety of reactions" to the situation among White River residents.

"Some people are are very relaxed," she said. "The MNR [Ministry of Natural Resources] is doing their job. That's exactly what they do. They're doing it very well."

"Other people are a little more panicky, where they're wondering'are wegoing to be evacuated? What do I do if we are?'Those kind of things. So we're answering those questions as they come up."

Anderson Hart said she's been assured by the MNR that there will be plenty of warning if an evacuation is required.

Ashley Nickle,community safety and media relations officer for Superior East OPP, said Tuesday highway closure decisions are made by the OPP and MNR.

"Basically what it comes down to is a safety issue," she said. "Whether or not motorists and any road users can safely use the road."

"In this case, the fire is not yet under control and it is producing large amounts of smoke resulting in near-zerovisibility. So that's a concern," Nickle said."The second concern is that, at at least one location, at one point the fire was observed to actually jump across the highway."

"Ifthe fire is jumping back and forth across the highway, that is obviously leading to some extremely dangerous conditions."

Nickle said anyone travelling through the area should take some precautions.

"If it's non-urgent travel, if it's something that can be rescheduled, we do recommend that people reschedule their travel plans," she said. "We do not know how long it will take to get this fire under control. It may be hours, it may be a matter of days."

As the highway reopens, the two firesin the WawaDistrict continue to burn.

Both are listed as not under control by Ontario's Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry.

WATCH | Learn more about the behaviour of forest fires:

Why do forest fires behave the way they do?

1 year ago

Duration 6:28

Joshua Johnson, a forest fire research scientist with Natural Resources Canada, explains to CBC North's Shannon Scott why forest fires behave the way they do.

Another fire of concern is Chapleau 1, which is being held, but is in "somewhat close proximity to the town of Chapleau," Hayward said. "We're paying close attention to that, especially with the extreme hazard for the northeast region today."

The fire hazard in the northwest region is also extreme in most places, save for a few pockets of high hazard including areas around Thunder Bay, Kenora, and Dryden.