While no date has yet been confirmed for Chibougamau residents to return, Mayor Manon Cyr announces that her goal is for residents to return to the community on Monday, June 12.
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“I can’t confirm an exact date, but the game plan and what we’re working on is getting you home from Monday June 12,” she says in a video posted to Facebook.
To that end, essential workers may take Route 167, which while safe, remains closed to the general public due to the evacuation notice still in effect.
“We’re looking at the situation hour by hour,” the mayor continues. If we want it to work, we must prepare to restart essential services.
Ms Cyr says three of the seven conditions for a return home are currently in place, but is urging residents not to contact the community by phone to keep phone lines free.
A question and answer will be posted on the city’s website at 5:30 p.m., the mayor assures.
About 7,500 Chibougamau residents are still being evacuated while the fire, which is still believed to be out of control, is still 20 kilometers from the city.
The French firefighters who arrived in Quebec on Friday have already been deployed to several sectors of Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean and Chibougamau.
“Of course the wind is our worst enemy when it changes direction. That’s why we set up a mechanized stop line in case the fire spreads,” says Josée Poitras, Prevention and Communications Officer at SOPFEU.
In addition to the 7,500 evacuees in Chibougamau, 800 people in the indigenous community of Oujé-Bougoumou were forced to leave their homes.