A new, tragic scenario is beginning to unfold in the aftermath of HRM’s massive brush fire this week — houses that are uninhabitable because of water, smoke and soot damage.
“Those issues are not as cut and dried in terms of do they need to tear the whole house down or not,” said Mineville Community Association president Kevin Murphy.
About 10 houses have sustained serious damage in the Mineville area alone, Murphy said.
At a community group gathering Tuesday evening, Murphy said dozens of people gathered and shared their grief and sorrow over the losses the community has faced in the wake of the fire that ravaged over 1,900 hectares of land around the Porter’s Lake/Lake Echo area.
The group offered its support to Clive Jones and his family, one of two families living on Candy Mountain Road whose homes were completely destroyed by the blaze.
But a number of new problems related to water and smoke emerged.
“For those families, perhaps they’re going to face an even longer road than those that totally lost everything,” Murphy said.
Insurance companies are known to drag out claims dealing with water and smoke damage, he said.
Department of Natural Resources spokeswoman Jennifer Gavin said she had no estimates on how many homes may have sustained serious smoke and water damage.
As an update to the fire situation yesterday, she said about 56 firefighters were still on scene in the burned-out area and although the rain and wet weather helped, there were some difficulties with surveying the damage because of fog.
Gavin said based on “ballpark figures” from past experiences, the Department of Natural Resources spent about $800,000 to fight the Porters Lake fire.
