Winnipeg hotels were opening up Monday to evacuees who fled their homes due to raging wildfires, while to the west in Saskatchewan thousands more were ordered to flee.
The Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency issued an alert late Monday afternoon saying the northern town of La Ronge had ordered an evacuation as fire had breached its airport.
The agency said flames were fast moving and that people in the community of 2,500, as well as anyone within 20 kilometres, including nearby Air Ronge and the Lac La Ronge Indian Band, had to leave immediately.
The blaze was listed as 836 square kilometres in size.
Earlier in the day in Saskatoon, where Canada’s premiers and the prime minister were meeting, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe said all of Canada has come together to help out the Prairie provinces.
“Many others around this table are consistently reaching out to the three of us to offer resources,” he said before the meeting.
More than 8,000 Saskatchewan residents were already out of their homes due to fires before the order was made for the La Ronge area. As of Monday, 18 fires were burning in Saskatchewan, with seven of them not contained.
In Manitoba, more than 17,000 people have been displaced since last week, including 5,000 residents of Flin Flon near the Saskatchewan boundary. Emergency centres were set up as available hotel rooms in cities have been scarce.
Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew said some 1,000 hotel rooms were being made available for evacuees in Winnipeg.
“We’re connecting folks who need those enhanced accessibility supports first and then broadening it out to everybody else who needs help, too.”
Some residents from Pimicikamak Cree Nation, east of Flin Flon, were taken to hotels in Niagara Falls, Ont., on Sunday. About 600 more were expected to land there Monday.
“This has been a harrowing experience for many of our people. But at the end of the day, it’s all about saving lives. It’s all about keeping people safe,” said Grand Chief Garrison Settee with Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak, an advocacy group representing some northern First Nations in the province.
Efforts to get First Nations evacuees out of Manitoba are being spearheaded by Xpera, a firm offering various security and evacuation support services. Settee said the company is handling buses, flights and hotel accommodations.
Higher courts in Manitoba and Saskatchewan were also to meet this week in Winnipeg for a conference, but it was cancelled to make hotel spaces available to evacuees.
The fire threatening Flin Flon began a week ago across the boundary in Saskatchewan and had grown to 400 square kilometres. Crews have said the fire was contained to outside the community’s perimeter highway.
Residents were ordered out Wednesday in an evacuation that Flin Flon local Derek Kemp called “immediate and hectic.”
“I just remember seeing a little bit of black smoke,” he said. “And then the next day, when I woke up, it was just giant plumes of smoke.”
Manitoba RCMP said evacuation efforts were completed in Flin Flon and surrounding areas, Lynn Lake and Pimicikamak, Mathias Colomb and Tataskweyak Cree Nations.
Manitoba reported 25 active wildfires Sunday. Officials said rain on Monday, while welcome, was “not enough to contribute towards wildfire suppression efforts.”
Kinew said support his province has received from other jurisdictions is appreciated but Canada needs to scale up its firefighting capabilities.
“As a nation, we’re going to have to contend with future fire seasons being more and more like this,” he said. “We could use every water bomber we can get our hands on.”
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said her province has seen nearly 5,000 people evacuated. There were 26 fires there listed as out-of-control.
The province experienced shifting winds, so some fire crews sent elsewhere have been called home, Smith said.
“With so many communities facing evacuation … we’ve got to be able to respond in a way that is going to be rapid.”
— With files from Lisa Johnson, Aaron Sousa and Jack Farrell in Edmonton, and Sharif Hassan in Toronto
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