Wildfire risk increases as northern island evacuated

About a dozen people were about to be flown out of a northern fly-in community as the wildfire risk ramped up in some parts of Manitoba Thursday.

Provincial officials said the small group would leave the Island Lake community of Stevenson Island, in northeast Manitoba.

“After some precipitation in a few areas over the last few days, we’re definitely starting to see fire activity start to pick up as things dry out,” said Kristin Hayward, assistant deputy minister of the Manitoba Wildfire Service.

A skeleton crew will remain on Stevenson Island to maintain the air strip and water treatment plant used for surrounding communities.

On Thursday, nine other communities remained evacuated throughout Manitoba.

Island Lake interim grand chief Alex McDougall has said he worries about Stevenson Island being evacuating because the airstrip is the only one in the region fit to handle Hercules aircraft, which have facilitated evacuations of nearby communities.

The strip will remain operational, said Christine Stevens, assistant deputy minister of the Manitoba Emergency Management Organization.

The Canadian Armed Forces ended its operation in Garden Hill Asininew Nation on Monday to evacuate 1,500 people from the community.

After brief periods of rain, the province is at a high fire risk, with parts of northeast Manitoba considered in extreme danger.

More than one million hectares of land has burned in Manitoba this year, making it the worst wildfire season in 30 years.

A raging fire near Pimicikimak Cree Nation (Cross Lake) and Wabowden has burned 153,000 hectares and has merged with several nearby fires, Hayward said.

The blaze is not a threat to structures in the community.

“It did grow a little bit towards Wabowden in recent days, but we’ve been able to hold that from growing any further in that direction,” Hayward said.

Cross Lake is not under an evacuation order.

A fire south of Lynn Lake damaged nearby Hydro structures and the Crown corporation is conducting an assessment of the damage.

“We’re working hard to continue air support over the corridor to ensure that there’s no further damage to structures,” Hayward said.

Nearly 13,000 residents are currently evacuated. They are staying with friends and families, at hotels, and at evacuation centres. As of Wednesday night, there were about 7,000 evacuees in hotel rooms and about 1,200 in shelters, a government spokesperson said. Ten hotels were added to a list of 58 across the province already offering rooms.

Stevens said evacuees are placed in hotels or congregate shelters based on a number of factors, including health, age and long-term hotel availability.

“We don’t want evacuees to have to move and relocate from hotel to hotel. We want them to settle in,” she said.

More than 700 evacuees have been moved into hotels since Monday.

“Every single day, we’re working to bring more hotels online that are a good fit for the needs of the community members that have been evacuated,” Stevens said.

Nearly 300 people from outside Manitoba are helping with the wildfires here, including crews from Quebec, Mexico, Australia, Minnesota and New Zealand.

nicole.buffie@freepress.mb.ca