At first glance it may have looked like an emergency situation at one of the Maritimes most iconic historic sites, as flames spanning 35 hectares towered at the Fortress of Louisbourg in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.
However, Friday afternoon’s fire was set by Parks Canada with the intention of preserving precious artifacts from the 18th century, buried in the soil and endangered by overgrown weeds.
“There’s Alder growth and grass growth. It’s the root systems of these plants that worm their way into the archeological features and destroy them.” says Maura McKeough, acting cultural resources manager for Parks Canada.
The terrain was torched to protect archaeological objects buried underground at the former site of what was called “Old Town,” a fishing village outside of the fortress.
“There’s probably fishing implementations, hooks. There have been trading beads found here. There’s been animal bones found here.” says McKeough.
“We start at the end where the wind is gonna push the fire. We start with really small strips of ignition. We’re using a drip torch, it’s a hand ignition device. We would light the fire, it would burn up to our control line, and then the next set it would burn up to the black,” says Jed Cochrane, Parks Canada Incident Commander.
For a controlled burn to actually work, conditions need to be pretty much ideal, especially the weather. In fact, today’s burn was nearly cancelled, but at the 11th hour, officials determined conditions were just right.
“It’s the resources you need. It’s weather, it’s wind speed, wind direction. It’s how dry the fuels are, it’s whether or not there are nesting birds on the site,” says Cochrane.
Parks Canada admits controlled burns come with a risk, but say they usually go without incident.
“From a cultural resource perspective, the benefits certainly outweigh the risk,” says Cochrane.
With files from CTV Atlantic's Ryan MacDonald
