Exploding ammunition and exploding tempers made for a tense day yesterday in northern Alberta, where a devastating wildfire on the weekend destroyed about a third of the town of Slave Lake.

Reporters and photographers on a tour of the scene were unexpectedly rushed from the area when fire officials discovered a box of ammunition in one home that started going off as an after-effect of the fire.

“Get back, get back, get back!” a panicked-sounding official yelled as he tried to corral the media representatives back to the safety of their cars.

“That’s the reason why we don’t want people in the location here,” RCMP Sgt. Tim Tamiguchi said later, suggesting it’s an illustration of why it’s not yet safe for residents to return.

Meanwhile, Slave Lake Mayor Karina Pillay-Kinnee was in a closed-door meeting in nearby Athabasca with some of the town’s 7,000 evacuees, trying to explain just that.

Many of the residents who emerged from the meeting appeared very angry, saying they were upset at a lack of information from both the local and provincial governments.

A lot of them say they don’t know yet whether their houses are still standing, and they’re being told it could be weeks before they will be allowed to return.

Pillay-Kinnee said she wanted to meet with the evacuees in person and reassure them that officials are doing the best they can.

“When we do give the information, they’re going to know if their homes have been affected, damaged or destroyed,”she said. “We’re doing everything we can and I think in the next while we will have that information to them.

“That was a very emotional, difficult task for us, to speak with our residents, but I think the message is we’re working hard on the ground to get our community up and running, so we can have them back in our community and start rebuilding our community.”

As of yet, the town has no potable water, no electricity and no natural gas.