Lac du Bonnet slowly healing from devastating fire Now, construction sounds instead of smoke fill the air By: Nicole Buffie Posted: 6:32 PM CDT Friday, Aug. 7, 2026

LAC DU BONNET — Fifteen months after devastating wildfires ripped through Lac du Bonnet, claiming two lives and destroying more than a dozen homes, residents are trying their best to build back better.

Along the winding gravel path that is Wendigo Road outside Lac du Bonnet, new timber peeks through patches of charred forest. Homes and cottages are beginning to take shape after fire raced through the neighbourhood at record speed and levelled at least 18 homes on the road.

Table saws and nail guns ring in the distance while Brian Curtis plots out where his new cottage will go. Curtis bought his previous cottage 19 years ago and had recently levelled the foundation.

He and his wife, Pam, had been thinking about long-term renovations when the May 13, 2025 fire swept away all their work and memories.

“It’s a lot of stuff lost, but all you can really do is move forward and try to move on,” he said.

Wendigo Road bore the brunt of the destruction in Lac du Bonnet, located about 100 kilometres east of Winnipeg, but the fire burned 4,000 hectares of land, destroying 28 properties throughout the rural municipality and forcing the evacuation of nearly 1,000 people.

A day before the fire sparked, a wildfire in Bird River, some 41 km east of the area, captured the attention of local residents, but few considered whether their community could be next.

Curtis remembers looking at videos of the Bird River fire from his home in the city, not realizing a second fire had ignited to the west.

“Next thing I know, we got texts and calls saying the fire had come down Wendigo. And then it was just all gone,” he recalls.

A week after firefighters fought back the flames from the residential area and it was deemed safe, RCMP allowed people to return to their properties. Most found their homes turned to ash and an area that was barely recognizable. With the help of an Ontario-based Christian ministry, the cleanup was swift and residents could start over.

New brush now covers the ground where the Canadian Shield had lain bare after the fires. Residents hope in a few years’ time, everything will grow back as it once was and it will look like nothing happened.

Some narrowly escaped the fires. A few kilometres down Wendigo Road from where the majority of the devastation occurred, a patch of Ron Runzer’s property is bare where a garage used to be.

He lost several workshops, a carport, heavy machinery and a big lilac bush. The flames got so close to his home it melted the siding off, but the house is still standing.

He considers himself lucky, but dealing with his insurance company has been a fraught experience.

“I lost about $200,000 worth of stuff, I got about half what everything was worth,” he said. “But I survived, and everyone is starting to rebuild.”

Permitting and insurance has been a headache for many over the past year. Some structures were built under outdated bylaws, leaving residents jumping through hoops to get their properties back to what they once looked like.

The 2026 wildfire season has been milder than last year’s, which is considered the worst wildfire season in Manitoba in 30 years. The province has recorded 303 fires to date, compared to 403 fires on the same date in 2025. This time last year, the province had just extended its province-wide state of emergency as tens of thousands of people were forced out of their homes owing to wildfires encroaching on dozens of communities, primarily in northern Manitoba First Nations.

In total, 446 fires burned more than two million hectares across the province.

Some residents of Wendigo Road are rebuilding what they lost, while others are still deciding whether to stay or start anew elsewhere.

Roger Kintop said if it wasn’t for his children and grandchildren, he wouldn’t have rebuilt the cottage he had for seven years.

His cabin should be livable by the fall. The dock he had rolled out into the water the night before the May wildfire still floats in the water. People use it for their boats and jet skis, or simply as a place to sit and look out over the lake. The dock has provided a sense of normalcy for many in the area, Kintop said.

“The spirit is still here, so we’re still here,” he said.

As he sees wildfires rage in B.C. and Ontario, burning up thousands of acres of land and homes, Kintop remembers the feeling.

“I see it on the TV and it’s like I’m looking at what happened here,” he said. “I know what they’re going through, but I can’t imagine losing my house or everything I got.”

Residents Sue and Richard Nowell were killed in last year’s fire, but they have not been forgotten.

A bridge over the Winnipeg River that snakes through the community was renamed the Susan & Richard Nowell Memorial Bridge and a sign displaying the name is on either side of it. A bouquet of faux flowers and a stuffed animal are fastened to one of the sign’s bases.

A photo of Sue hangs inside Café Lucci in downtown Lac du Bonnet, where Sue volunteered and worked part-time over the years. Her portrait is surrounded by a floral design and the phrase “forever missed.”

Café owner Karen Kost said she briefly took the memorial down because it was painful for the employees to see daily, but customers insisted it be put back up.

“She’s missed around here so much,” Kost said. “When someone can’t find something around here, we say we’re ‘praying to Karen’ to find it.”

Last year’s wildfires have brought new perspective to many in the area, Kost says. Residents have more appreciation for little things and less worry about what is out of their control.

“I also think it really made people aware of our vulnerability,” she said.

Since last year’s fire, the RM of Lac du Bonnet has hired more personnel for the volunteer fire department and raised money to update its fleet of fire equipment.

Some residents are building their new homes and cottages with the risk of fire in mind, while others say there isn’t much left to burn.

“Just pray it doesn’t happen again,” Runzer said.

nicole.buffie@freepress.mb.ca

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Nicole Buffie
Multimedia producer

Nicole Buffie is a reporter for the Free Press city desk. Born and bred in Winnipeg, Nicole graduated from Red River College’s Creative Communications program in 2020 and worked as a reporter throughout Manitoba before joining the Free Press newsroom as a multimedia producer in 2023. Read more about Nicole.

Every piece of reporting Nicole 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.