Emergency responders have been stretched thin in the metro area dealing with at least a half dozen traffic accidents caused by sudden whiteouts in severe snow squalls.

A rash of crashes were reported during a five-minute span around 11:15, mostly in the area of the Outer Ring Road and the town of Paradise.

One of the accidents reportedly involves up to eight vehicles, with traffic backed up several kilometres in the westbound lanes.

All of that caused the fire department to move some resources to the Paradise station from St. John’s to cover off any additional needs during the busy stretch.

There were also reports of a small car overturned along the Torbay bypass road.

The situation was further exacerbated by a house fire in the centre of the city around the same time on Terra Nova Road.

There are so far no reports of serious injuries, if any, in any of the mishaps or house fire.

Drivers, meanwhile, are reminded to manually turn on their lights, and use emergency flashers to increase the odds of being seen by other drivers.