Hundreds of cots carefully set up in the arena in Roberval, Que., now sit empty. Grey wool blankets lie folded in boxes.
Officials had planned to offer refuge here to many of the 7,000 evacuees fleeing a raging forest fire near Chibougamau, 250 kilometres north.
Instead, the generosity of locals in the Saguenay–Lac-St-Jean region kicked in. After the evacuees arrived early Wednesday morning, local families began arriving at the arena, offering to house them.
“When we made the emergency plan and we received the population of Chibougamou, I didn’t know it was possible,” Roberval Mayor Serge Bergeron said at a news conference Thursday. “I knew the population
