To hear a child playing in the street and laughing was enough to bring a tear to the eye of Labrador City Mayor Belinda Adams as her town becomes reacquainted with the life they knew.
The hospital has reopened, employees are going back to work, services are being restored and residents are putting the ten-day evacuation in their rearview mirror.
The Town of Labrador City was evacuated two weekends ago as a forest fire crept dangerously close following a shift in the winds.
Mayor Adams notes that they did not have a single injury during the entire evacuation process—the largest evacuation in the history of Newfoundland and Labrador. All this despite the fact that the fire quickly grew to the size of 25,000 football fields two Fridays ago.
The fire moved 4 km in an hour or so closer to town to lie 4km away from town, a situation which she says caused incredible anxiety.