Canadian soldiers deployed to help fight wildfires in Saskatchewan are going home.
Steve Roberts, with the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency, says half of the 300 Canadian Armed Forces members have already returned to their home bases while the other half go back Thursday.
Roberts says that based on current wildfire behaviour he doesn’t anticipate the province needing military help for the remainder of the season.
He says the agency has also sent Australian firefighters home and no longer needs a Quebec water bomber, but is retaining crews from some other provinces to contain the blazes
The agency is reporting 49 active wildfires, including six uncontained.
Favourable weather conditions and reduced wildfire threats have allowed all of the province’s remaining evacuees to return home this week.
“We will continue to monitor and we will utilize our provincial resources and external resources as they’re required,” Roberts told a news conference Wednesday.
He said fires were aggressive this year, on par with blazes in 2015. At the peak in June, wildfires forced more than 10,000 northern Saskatchewan residents out of their homes.
In Denare Beach, 550 kilometres northeast of Saskatoon, 218 personal residences burned down after a wildfire swept through the community.
“We had severe losses in Denare Beach, but many communities were protected from any losses,” Roberts said. “When you consider (the) communities that were impacted by wildfires this year, our success rate and our ability to protect people is extraordinary.”
In neighbouring Manitoba, wildfires at their peak forced 21,000 people from their homes. Some communities remain under evacuation and the province’s state of emergency remains in effect.
On Tuesday, Manitoba’s government signed a $30-million contract with the Canadian Red Cross for evacuee support and other services related to this year’s wildfires.
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