May 29

Crabapple blossoms on a clients tree today. The tree is over 40 years old, it was there when she bought the property.
An update on the forest fire. It is about 50 km from where I live. It is still burning out of control about 30 hours after it started. Over 14,000 people have been evacuated. Some homes have burned or been damaged. So far there has been no loss of life due to the fire. I cannot see the billowing smoke that could be seen yesterday, as the wind has changed direction. It is cooler today than yesterday, a high of 14 C today compared to 30 C yesterday. The winds are the problem now.
Around 9:30 pm yesterday they expanded the evacuation area. Several friends and some clients are now in the evacuated area. Others are on the border. One of my workers owns a house in the evacuated area, he has tenants that live there. As of this morning he did not know if the house was still standing and the tenants were not answering their phone.
I heard that the fire was started when someone was doing some illegal burning. Anyone having any kind of fire right now has no common sense. During March, April and May we have had 50% of the normal rainfall. There is no moisture in the ground and the woods are extremely dry.
Nova Scotians show what they are made of though. People were opening their homes to total strangers to give evacuees a place to stay. If they had a truck or a trailer, they were offering help to people who needed animals moved. One farm in the area has several horses that are boarded there. They had to turn the horses loose, they had no way to get them out of the fire zone. Last night and this morning people were able to catch the horses and move them to a safe area.
Some people were not at home when the evacuation happened, and they were not allowed to return to get necessary items and pets. If their home was not directly in the fire path today, they were being escorted in so they could get their pets and things like prescriptions.