Charges have yet to be laid in the fire that ravaged parts of HRM this week, but natural resources officials say they have a pretty good idea how it started.
“We do have a great ability to trace burn patterns back to the origin,” said department spokeswoman Jennifer Gavin.
Lead investigators confirmed the fires, which consumed a total of 1,925 hectares of land, were man-made.
They continued to work on tracing the fire all day yesterday and Cpl. Joe Taplin with the RCMP said it might be a week or more before the public knows exactly what sparked the blaze.
“There are still firefighters out there,” he said.
About 50 firefighters from the department and from Halifax Fire and Emergency Services continued to work on dousing hot spots in the burned-down brush in the Lake Echo and Porters Lake area while helicopters supervised the work from above, keeping crews apprised of trouble spots.
Gavin said Newfoundland and Labrador’s CL-215 water bomber was still in the area on standby but other air tankers had been released from the scene.
She said fire crews would remain in the fire-ravaged area for several more days “to make sure that all of the hot spots have been taken care of, and then it takes a few days to get all the equipment out.”
The next steps will include cleaning up the area and the equipment.
“Then the re-growth of the area is sort of a natural process; I’m not sure if they’re doing anything to assist that process,” Gavin said.
About 5,000 people were evacuated over the weekend as a result of the wildfire and all returned safely to their homes Monday afternoon.
Most homes suffered minimal damage but two on Candy Mountain Road were completely destroyed.
