Premier sees wildfire devastation first-hand

Premier Wab Kinew likened the wildfire-scarred landscape near Flin Flon to something out of a movie as he described the devastation he witnessed during an aerial tour Thursday as both surreal and sobering.

“If you’ve ever been to Flin Flon, it’s a city like many others in Manitoba,” he said. “You walk down the main drag and, typically, it’s a bustling city, people walking around, driving around. You go there right now, it’s like a scene out of a movie. You can walk into the middle of the street and you’re not going to see anybody.”

After getting a bird’s-eye view of scorched northern fire zones, Kinew emphasized the immense effort to fight the 307,000-hectare fire — a blaze seven times the size of Winnipeg.

“This burn area was massive, just a huge, huge part of the province that has been burned, and a very busy part of the province,” Kinew said after touching down in St. Andrews, north of Winnipeg, in the evening.

“You meet the firefighters, who have been there for weeks now (and) they’ve done an amazing job. They’ve held this massive wildfire at bay, the biggest fire we can recall being on their doorstep. They’ve done it by working together.”

Kinew said what struck him most was being in the helicopter with a decades-long veteran of the Manitoba Wildfire Service.

“They said you’d have a big fire once every eight years or so, and now it’s every single year, and they’re happening earlier and it’s going later into the year,” he said. “I cannot stress enough what a job these folks are doing.”

Aerial photos of the tour show a stark, haunting landscape — vast stretches of forest reduced to blackened earth, with trees scorched down to stumps or erased entirely, leaving behind ash and barren ground. In some areas, the devastation is absolute.

Elsewhere, the view tells a different story — isolated burn scars, their charred edges clawing into the landscape, ringed by untouched greenery. These surviving patches stand in sharp contrast to the destruction nearby, depicting the unpredictable nature of a wildfire.

During the day, Kinew went to Bakers Narrows, Flin Flon, and Thompson, to witness the tireless efforts of crews working to protect lives and homes.

The premier touched down in Bakers Narrows, where firefighting operations for Flin Flon and the surrounding area are being co-ordinated.

“We had the opportunity to thank some of the American firefighters who were just heading out and speak to the fire commissioner and Manitoba Wildfire Service, who are leading the job of containing the fires in the area.”

In Flin Flon, home to 5,000 people who evacuated in late May due to the advancing wildfire, and nearby areas, the blaze has grown to more than 307,000 hectares — roughly seven times the size of Winnipeg — and remains out of control.

A mandatory evacuation order remains in place. On May 28, Flin Flon residents were given a few hours to grab personal items and get out.

On the ground in Flin Flon, Kinew met with firefighters, including crews from Ebb and Flow First Nation and the Harrison Park Fire Department from Sandy Lake. He spent time speaking to emergency responders and posed for photos in a show of gratitude and solidarity.

“Just know that it’s been a long go for the people here,” Landon Shepherd, wildfire incident commander of Jasper National Park, told Kinew at the Flin Flon command centre.

“We’re happy to be helping out Manitoba Wildfire (staff), and it’s great to see people that come together and work so well (together).

“The scale of these events now, (as) we learned in Jasper… makes it even tougher for logistics and bringing people in. You need to bring all the different weapons to bear, especially as a lot of these (wildfires) are focused around communities, not just out on the wildland. It’s trickier,” he said.

In July 2024, a wildfire raged out of control in Jasper National Park, in northern Alberta, forcing the evacuation of 25,000 people. The flames destroyed about 350 structures. The evacuation lasted until mid-August and the fire wasn’t declared under control until Sept. 7.

Flin Flon Fire Chief Jason Kuras told the premier the past few weeks have been intense.

“We were really lucky that we had an outpouring of support from all the municipalities that brought us trucks at the right time, that we were able to cut off the key areas that we needed to,” Kuras said. “It’s been amazing. It’s worked out really well.”

Kuras, who recognized many of the firefighters from last year’s wildfire efforts, joked about getting the band back together.

“It’s unfortunate it couldn’t be under better circumstances, but I couldn’t have asked for a better group that came up and absolutely busted their ass.”

Kuras added that his team had been battling fires in The Pas and Opaskwayak Cree Nation before the threat escalated in Flin Flon.

“As soon as there was even a sniff that we might need some help, it was boom, OCN sent up a unit within hours, The Pas sent up a unit within hours,” he said. “We’re distance aways but we’re all so close. It was great to see that.”

Kuras praised the results emergency crews achieved despite limited resources.

“These kind of events are not going to be the only one-off,” Kuras said, seemingly making the case for more fire engines in the region.

In Thompson, Kinew held private meetings with evacuees and spoke with staff from the Manitoba Métis Federation outside the Thompson Regional Community Centre. Later in the day, he visited the local hospital to meet with health-care workers.

Kinew said that while he was at the shelter in Thompson, he was struck by the plight of the 180 people sleeping in the space.

“Families with kids sleeping on cots in a hockey rink two weeks into this thing,” he said.

“I want Manitobans to know we’re still in a situation where we have to maintain people out of communities where it’s not yet safe to return for at least a few days, and in some cases, it might be weeks.

He said most of the hotel sector has done a good job, but others should step up and do better.

“The vast, vast majority of people in the hotel industry have been great partners to us. We’ve got thousands of rooms… but I want to say to those operators of hotels who aren’t stepping up, we need to see more. We all know there are more rooms out there.”

While the province does have data on hotel availability, Kinew stopped short of issuing a formal warning to hotel operators. He acknowledged he has the power, in an emergency, to requisition rooms.

“I would hope it comes across more as an encouragement and a bit more of a direct callout,” he said.

“We have emergency powers and we’ve been very restrained in how we are using them.”

Kinew acknowledged the province must learn a lesson from this year’s horrible wildfire season.

“You gotta plan,” the premier said. “Let’s have that conversation once things calm down a bit.”

— with files from Mike Deal

scott.billeck@freepress.mb.ca

Scott Billeck
Reporter

Scott Billeck is a general assignment reporter for the Free Press. A Creative Communications graduate from Red River College, Scott has more than a decade’s worth of experience covering hockey, football and global pandemics. He joined the Free Press in 2024.  Read more about Scott.

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