Fire safety no longer an issue at former nuclear site in Pinawa, decommissioning firm says

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This article was published 12/12/2025 (190 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

PINAWA — More than two years after operations at Whiteshell Laboratories were halted due to safety concerns, leadership at the former nuclear site say they have rebuilt the facility’s fire department.

“I have an immense amount of pride in what we are, and who we are,” fire chief Brent MacDonald said, speaking from inside the fire hall at the 11,000 acre site, located about 100 kilometres east of Winnipeg.

Canadian Nuclear Laboratories — the private firm licensed to oversee and decommission the site — invited the Free Press to tour its facilities this week to demonstrate how it has shored up safety procedures in 2025.

This came following last month’s release of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission’s 2024 regulatory report, which rated the Pinawa lab site as “below expectations” for emergency management and fire-protection standards, as well as human resource management related to its firefighting complement.

The report followed a stop-work order from the federal nuclear watchdog that was in effect between April 2023 and September 2024, which ordered CNL to complete a multi-phase restart plan after a fire-safety assessment identified deficiencies.

General manager and decommissioning site licence holder Brian Wilcox said the document did not capture the scope of work completed in the months since, and pledged that his team has turned things around.

“We found what I would describe as fairly minor but somewhat extensive issues in our program, so we stopped all work, put the site in a safe state and then we methodically started to correct those issues,” Wilcox said.

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“What you see today is a super high-performing fire team…. It’s about creating excellence, not just hitting good enough. And I think that’s a story that doesn’t come out when you just read a regulatory report.”

MacDonald, who joined the fire crew in June 2022, said he was among those who first raised concerns about safety.

“There were gaps that were identified. It was nobody’s fault. It was just stuff that either hadn’t been caught or hadn’t been considered. The response was swift,” he said.

“We essentially rebuilt our fire department.”

About 36 people were hired into the program, including firefighters and experts in fire engineering, to assess overall fire systems. They were directed to run drills, train and identify tactics, techniques and equipment that would help inform future policies and procedures, MacDonald said.

“Not only to make sure everything was right, but then to put contingencies in place to ensure there would be numerous checks and balances so things could never return back to where they were,” he said.

In total, the department has 47 firefighters who work in shifts and provide fire and emergency response services on site around the clock. Team members are equipped to provide wildland and structural fire response.

CNL said each firefighter averages about four hours of training during every shift. Overall, the members obtained 111 certifications and logged 5,696 hours of external accredited training in 2025. Many are certified in confined space, high-angle and water rescues; others are certified as fire instructors and investigators.

As Manitoba battled one of the most significant wildfire seasons in recent history last summer, 23 firefighters from the Whiteshell site collectively spent 600 hours working on blazes in nearby Lac du Bonnet and Bird River, CNL said.

Members also assisted crews in Thompson between February and August, where they participated in 107 fire calls.

Plans are underway to construct a new and larger fire hall at the Whiteshell site and create a training facility that can be used by firefighters across the province.

tyler.searle@freepress.mb.ca

Tyler Searle
Reporter

Tyler Searle is a multimedia producer who writes for the Free Press’s city desk. A graduate of Red River College Polytechnic’s creative communications program, he wrote for the Stonewall Teulon Tribune, Selkirk Record and Express Weekly News before joining the paper in 2022. Read more about Tyler.

Every piece of reporting Tyler produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.