Crews in a western Newfoundland town took over the job on Tuesday that Mother Nature started last year when the earth began to give way beneath homes on a Daniel's Harbour cliffside.

Fires were lit Tuesday in buildings on a cliffside section of Daniel's Harbour that was evacuated after landslides last fall and this spring.
(CBC)

Officials started lighting fires in the morning in an area that had been evacuated this spring after a series of landslides pulled down a bungalow.

Four homes and three other evacuated buildings were set to be destroyed by fire. Shifting winds at midday, however, halted the burn, leaving three homes yet to be destroyed.

"What we just finished destroying are homes, and there's a definite difference between a house and a home," said Mayor Steve Carey.

Town officials and a fire marshal had been waiting for days for the right wind conditions for the scheduled burn so that smoke did not blow back over the community.

Landslides started last fall, when a business and a couple of homes were evacuated. Officials have described the clay-based cliff as having an "active slide" and have warned that further landslides are likely.

'What we just finished destroying are homes,' Mayor Steve Carey said.
(CBC)

Carey said people in the town are eager to move on.

"This gets the final phase of the recovery section of it in place for the families. They realize that this is done [now] and the town and the families will have to move on and restart their lives," he said.

A man who had been evacuated from both his home and a meat-cutting business said he could not talk on camera, but said it is heartbreaking to see 34 years of his life go up in smoke.

However, he also said it was a relief to know that the buildings he can never enter again are finally gone.

The landslides led the Newfoundland and Labrador government to reroute the Northern Peninsula Highway through the community.