About a thousand people have now fled their homes as a result of forest fires in northern Saskatchewan, but the situation is actually better than it was yesterday.
There were 11 new fires in the last 24 hours, bringing the total to 48. Eighteen of the blazes are not contained, including a 37,000-hectare blaze burning 20 km away from La Ronge.
The executive director of Wildfire Management, Steve Roberts, says while lightning has caused a few more fires, the weather is helping today.
“We are not anticipating any major precipitation in the next three days,” he says. “So we will use and take advantage of these moderate conditions that the rain has given us and we have already engaged some of the fires that we couldn’t get into yesterday.”
The evacuees are staying at shelters or hotels in Prince Albert and Saskatoon or with family and friends. No new evacuation orders are expected today, and some residents of the Clearwater River Dene Nation near La Loche who had been evacuated may be allowed to return home.
Deanna Wysoskey with Social Services says the ministry is prepared to handle more evacuees if necessary.
“We have room for additional people if they need to evacuate in both Saskatoon and Prince Albert,” she says. “So we haven’t at this point exhausted our resources at our two main host communities.”
The biggest threat today is smoke, not fire. Merv Tippe with Saskatchewan Health says 10 patients at the La Ronge Health Centre were moved. Four of them were simply discharged, the other six were transferred to Victoria Hospital in Prince Albert.
There are westerly winds blowing today, which means smoke from Alberta forest fires will likely be blown into La Ronge, as well. Tippe says that could cause more problems and possibly more evacuations.
“That is a decision that will have to be made if more people need to be evacuated,” he says. “At this point in time, we are not hearing from La Ronge itself that anything else needs to be done.”
The fires have destroyed seven cabins and one home in the La Ronge area. So far this year, there have been 344 wildfires — about twice as many as last year.
Meanwhile, residents of Sucker River are no longer on standby for a possible general evacuation.
Lac La Ronge Indian Band Chief Tammy Cook-Searson says it’s because the fire that was a possible threat to the community hasn’t moved.
“The Sucker Fire near Sucker River, they said that it hasn’t moved, so they have taken the community of Sucker River off standby notice — so they’re no longer on standby notice,” she says. “But the smoke continues to be an issue in the surrounding communities, so we still do have people that have been evacuated because of the smoke.”
Cook-Searson says there have now been 1,160 residents in the affected communities that have been voluntarily evacuated — almost entirely because of the heavy smoke.
The health concerns were what lead Kathy Lavallee to bring her family to stay with friends in Prince Albert.
She says her family has three kids under the age of 11 who suffer from asthma.
“We tried to wait it out and keep them housebound, but it was just too hard, so we had to get them out of town,” said Lavallee.
Meanwhile, La Ronge Mayor Thomas Sierzycki says they are not even considering a general evacuation at this point.
He says residents are asked to stay calm and continue their daily routine, but they also are asked to be prepared in case anything changes.