‘It’s a cruel summer’

Shane Castel was relieved when a planeload of medically vulnerable wildfire evacuees from northern Manitoba emerged from heavy smoke into the first blue sky he had seen in days.

Castel and his five-year-old daughter, Kaia Rose Castel, left Pimicikamak Cree Nation (Cross Lake) Monday — the second time they have been forced out since late May — in a partial evacuation involving more than 100 residents.

“It’s really overwhelming. I’m not totally shocked because I knew we weren’t out of the woods yet, when the smoke was coming,” said Castel, 40, who is staying in a Winnipeg hotel. “It was that familiar feeling when clouds of smoke were in the air. (Kaia Rose) asked, ‘Why is it so smoky again?’ She even knew, ‘Do we need to leave?’”

Castel said he has asthma and other conditions that make him a Priority 1 resident during wildfire evacuations. He’d been staying indoors with an air purifier since heavy smoke returned to Pimicikamak, about 530 kilometres north of Winnipeg.

The community of more than 7,500 people was evacuated in late May due to an out-of-control blaze that is still burning. New fires have started since residents were allowed to return June 16. The only highway in and out has had intermittent closures.

More than 6,600 Manitobans were displaced by fires as of Tuesday. The peak was more than 22,000 in mid-June.

Pimicikamak started moving Priority 1 residents to Winnipeg over the weekend. The measure expanded to a voluntary evacuation for all residents Monday.

“It’s a cruel summer,” said Castel, who doesn’t know when he and his daughter will return home.

He anticipates they will spend a lot of time swimming in the hotel pool, going for walks, watching cartoons and visiting a friend whose pet cat, Hector, has a calming effect on them during anxious times.

“I think she thinks it’s a vacation in a way,” Castel said of his daughter. “It’s all on Mother Nature now. We need rain to go north to Pimicikamak, and Lynn Lake, Split Lake, Leaf Rapids and Thompson. We’re all in trouble there.”

Leaf Rapids’ mandatory evacuation order went into effect Tuesday. Some residents were making the roughly 950-kilometre journey to Winnipeg by bus.

Lynn Lake evacuee Chantelle Thomas, her partner and their six children, aged one to 17, are staying in a hotel in Brandon, after the town of about 600 people was evacuated Friday for the second time since late May.

The second evacuation for Lynn Lake and nearby Marcel Colomb First Nation was due to a possible power outage.

“I didn’t like it because we were only home for two weeks,” Thomas said about the evacuation. “We’re going to be away for the summer.”

During the initial three-week evacuation, her family spent 10 days in a congregate shelter at Thompson’s hockey arena, where they slept on cots and felt unsafe, she said.

“This is not as stressful as it was in Thompson. We slept in the arena with hundreds of other people,” Thomas, 38, said. “That was an awful experience. It was hectic, loud, stressful. I never want to experience that again.”

This time, evacuees were flown to Brandon to stay in hotels. Thomas and her family are trying to make the most of their time in a city they had never visited. They’ve been playing in the hotel pool, going for walks and visiting a shopping mall.

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These were the first and second evacuations the family experienced.

“And, hopefully, the last,” Thomas said.

In Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation (Nelson House), council members met with federal and provincial officials to discuss an evacuation involving dozens of Priority 1 residents.

They include people who have terminal illnesses, receive dialysis or have chronic respiratory illnesses.

Prior to the meeting, NCN’s council said earlier pleas were met with delays or claims that hotel rooms or personal care beds were not available elsewhere.

Coun. Kim Linklater said NCN found space when it began looking on its own.

“They have to go to another facility that is comparable,” she said about NCN’s 24 care home residents.

The Manitoba government said evacuees who require help should report to a soccer complex at 770 Leila Ave. in Winnipeg, which reopened as the primary reception centre Tuesday. It can be used as a congregate shelter, if hotel rooms are not available for all evacuees.

The Manitoba Wildfire Service reported 83 active fires, with high and very high fire-danger level for most of the province. Most of the fires were in the northern region, with lightning responsible for dozens of new starts.

Favourable weather, including south winds, helped crews fight an out-of-control blaze about 15 km north of Thompson, where officials pressed ahead with preparations in case an evacuation is needed.

More firefighters arrived from across Manitoba to battle the roughly 7,000-hectare fire, Mayor Colleen Smook said.

“Things are going pretty good. We’ve got a lot of crews,” she said. “The fire is holding, and we’re cautiously optimistic.”

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Thompson residents were advised to keep their vehicles fuelled up and prepare an evacuation bag. They will soon be asked to register to give officials an idea of how many would need transportation or accommodation if an evacuation occurred, Smook said.

“It’s just precautionary,” she said.

The fire was more than three times the size of northern Manitoba’s largest city. The blaze, detected Monday, was caused by lightning.

Helicopter crews dumped water on hot spots, while more sprinklers were set up to help protect assets, including the Thompson airport.

A controlled burn was scheduled Tuesday evening to eliminate trees that would serve as fuel if the wind shifted to the north and the fire spread toward Thompson.

chris.kitching@freepress.mb.ca

Chris Kitching
Reporter

Chris Kitching is a general assignment reporter at the Free Press. He began his newspaper career in 2001, with stops in Winnipeg, Toronto and London, England, along the way. After returning to Winnipeg, he joined the Free Press in 2021, and now covers a little bit of everything for the newspaper. Read more about Chris.

Every piece of reporting Chris 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.