TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Explorer and project developer Eastmain Resources announced that late on Friday evening management had ordered the evacuation of all crew members from the Clearwater gold project, in the James Bay region of Québec, owing to forest fires in the region.
Crew members evacuated to safety on Saturday, in conjunction with a convoy of personnel from Hydro-Quebec's EM-1 power facility, located 10 km west of the project.
Eastmain said it was closely monitoring the situation and would resume work at Clearwater when it was safe to return. In the meantime, crews would be reallocated to the Eastmain mine project, where fieldwork would continue.
Canadian gold miner Goldcorp also on Thursday ordered crews to evacuate its Éléonore project, owing to forest fires.
On Monday, the company said a period of rain in the James Bay region has extinguished a forest fire that had previously threatened the gold project. Cooler temperatures and shifting winds had eliminated the smoke at the site, and the Public Safety Department had given permission to resume fuel and supply deliveries to the site.
The crew that had remained at site to manage and implement preventive emergency measures remained safe. All infrastructure and equipment at Éléonore, including power and communications, were undamaged.
The Éléonore project team would now be remobilised and no material impact to the construction schedule was expected.