Nova Scotia residents displaced by wildfire returning home

AYLESFORD – Residents who were forced to flee their homes earlier this month because of a wildfire in Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley began returning home on Thursday.

Officials announced the day before that the Lake George wildfire was being held, meaning the fire wasn’t likely to grow.

Tim Harding was among those waiting to return on Thursday. He, his wife and grandson were forced to leave their Lake George home on Sept. 29. “It’s a relief to go back,” Harding said in a phone interview while sitting on a bench in the backyard of his sister’s home in nearby Morristown, N.S.

Harding, who is a councillor for the Municipality of the County of Kings, said his home was among the first to be included in an evacuation order late last month. He said his family gathered what they could and left within 30 minutes.

“My wife is at her mom’s house and I’ve been at my sister’s, we’re both living out of suitcases,” he said, adding that his grandson was staying with his mother. “We also have three dogs — one is with me and one is with my wife and one is with my daughter-in-law. We have family around and they helped us out, but any longer and we would have had to find something.”

Harding said he was scheduled to return home around noon; officials had staggered the return times for residents between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.

“I have my fingers crossed that it’s the end of it and the end of it everywhere because there have been a lot of fires popping up here in Nova Scotia with it being so dry,” he said.

Dan Stovel, an emergency measures official with the municipality, said there was “good news all around.”

“No structures were lost and no power was shut down to any of the evacuated residences, so they don’t have to worry about fridges or throwing out wasted food,” Stovel said.

However, he said evacuees have been warned they may still be ordered to leave again should the fire flare up and shift direction.

The wildfire began on Sept. 28 and led to an evacuation order covering about 350 civic addresses near Aylesford, N.S. Officials said earlier this week that 391 people from 205 households had registered with the Canadian Red Cross at a shelter in New Minas, N.S.

The wildfire was estimated to be just under three square kilometres in size on Thursday.

Jim Rudderham, director of fleet and forest protection with the Department of Natural Resources, credited the work of firefighters for the lifting of the evacuation order. He said they succeeded despite the challenges of building containment lines in unseasonably hot weather — temperatures reached highs near 30 C earlier this week.

“Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were three challenging days where the fire did not progress, so that showed that all the work they had been doing held … we were confident at that point and then the rain last night helped us again to be even more confident,” said Rudderham, who added that he was surprised at the results.

“I was fully expecting on Monday that the fire was going to grow and it did not,” he said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 9, 2025.