The long road to allowing evacuees back into communities affected by the wildfire on the Conception Bay North Shore is underway, but the task ahead is significant.

Suppression efforts are ongoing with nine waterbombers working on the 10,000-hectare fire today, and the evacuation alert has been lifted for Job’s Cove and Freshwater, Carbonear.

PAL Aerospace is flying over the area with special radar equipment to help identify hot spots that might not otherwise be easily seen.

That’s allowing Newfoundland Power to get into certain areas to assess and repair damage to power infrastructure.

Not all poles will be replaced, depending on whether people choose to rebuild

The President and CEO of Newfoundland Power, Gary Murray, says 200 poles are destroyed or compromised and must be replaced.

“That is about 12 per cent of the total 1,750 poles in the fire area. We will be replacing 125 of these as it is safe to do so. The remaining 75 will not be replaced until property reconstruction occurs.”

Murray says to-date, crews have focused on ensuring that firefighters are able to work safely, and helping officials with assessing property losses.

Premier John Hogan says there have been some discrepancies between what Newfoundland Power records show and the actual structures on the ground. That’s resulted in changes to the number of structures destroyed from 203 to 196. Up to now, 176 people have been notified.

As for when evacuees will be allowed in, a two-page checklist has to be met, of which only 4 to 5 are related to the fire itself.

Roads, bridges and hazardous materials among many considerations

Minister Jamie Korab is heading a cabinet committee to address the many issues surrounding the disaster.

He says among the many issues that need to be addressed and resolved include clean drinking water, air quality, hazardous materials – from buildings to deceased livestock, roadways, bridges, communications – “you have to be able to call 911,so they work with the telecommunications companies. You have to have access to fuel, access to health care, so there are a lot of things that impact how quickly people can get back to these areas, but we’re working as fast as we can.”