Maritime Resources (TSXV: MAE) has halted civil construction activities at its Hammerdown gold project in northwest Newfoundland as wildfires continue to blaze in the province.
Though there aren’t any active fires in the Baie Verte-Green Bay district, Maritime supports the provincial government’s proactive approach to scale back activities near forested areas, the company said Friday in a release. Hammerdown is near the town of King’s Point, about 530 km northwest of the capital St. John’s.
The construction pause comes one week after Maritime suspended all heavy equipment activities at Hammerdown, while Newfoundland’s forest fire index for the region around the project and even for much of the province is rated at “extreme.”
Credit: Newfoundland and Labrador government
Pine Cove, Firefly unaffected
Processing and site work are unaffected at the Pine Cove mill, about 90 km north of Hammerdown and 6 km northeast of the town of Baie Verte.
FireFly Metals (TSX, ASX: FFM), which is advancing the Ming copper-gold project near Baie Verte, has not announced any wildfire-related work stoppages.
Maritime is the second exploration company in Newfoundland this week to suspend activities, after New Found Gold (TSX-V: NFG; NYSE-A: NFGC) paused heavy equipment work on Wednesday at its Queensway project near Gander.
Active wildfires
There were nine active wildfires in Newfoundland and Labrador as of Friday morning, at least four of which are classified as out of control, according to the provincial government’s Active Wildfire Dashboard.
Regional states of emergency are in effect for eastern areas of the island. These include parts of the Bay de Verde Peninsula, the towns of Conception Bay South and Paradise and Southlands and Galway in the city of St. John’s.
Newfoundland and Labrador isn’t the only Eastern Canadian province to be affected. In New Brunswick on Thursday, Puma Exploration (TSXV: PUMA; US-OTC: PUMXF) announced a temporary pause to heavy equipment work at its gold projects in the province’s north amid a government ban on Crown land activities due to extreme fire risks.
“This is an unprecedented situation in all my years of working in New Brunswick,” President and CEO Marcel Robillard said in a release. This summer’s wildfire season has spurred province-wide states of emergency in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, which led to the suspension of several mines and exploration programs.
British Columbia and Nova Scotia are also currently grappling with several wildfires though states of emergency haven’t been declared.
Be the first to comment on "Maritime halts Hammerdown work on NL wildfires"