It's time for regular updates on forest fire emergencies

Winnipeg Free Press

14 hours ago

Opinion
Where there's smoke, the saying goes, there's fire.
But there isn't necessarily information.
Right now, we unfortunately have plenty of both smoke and fire — with the smoke obscuring the sky across Manitoba. It's not just smoke obscuring things.
Ruth Bonneville / Free Press files
Natural Resources and Indigenous Futures Minister Ian Bushie
It is the first major emergency Premier Wab Kinew government's has had to handle, but there have been real problems with that government when it comes to getting information out. In the past, for major emergencies like floods and COVID-19, regular government briefings provided daily information that the media could pass on Manitobans.
With one of the largest emergencies in Manitoba's recent history and thousands evacuated, you'd think that the government would be ready and able to answer questions — in fact, you'd think it would be trying to use the media to get as much information out as possible.
It hasn't been happening.
That's a point aptly made outside the legislature by Opposition Leader Obby Khan earlier this week: 'We are in a state of emergency in this province. I would think that a daily news conference, a daily press conference, a daily update to Manitobans would be the appropriate thing … This is one of the largest evacuations in Manitoba history and there's lots of unknowns out there. Manitobans have a right to know.'
Instead, the government has been less than available, and less than transparent, about the fire emergency. Since the government declared a provincewide state of emergency on May 28, there have been just two media briefings on the fire, with a weeklong gap in between.
And it's been relying on issuing a single new release once a day.
Dated, late-in-the-day briefing notes don't help to explain the full picture to Manitobans.
The June 4 fire bulletin No. 24 runs an impressive 1,387 words. But there's little explanation of anything that's occurred at the fire scenes or how they are being dealt with. Of those 1,387 words, a total of 1,195 (86 per cent) are cut and pasted from fire bulletin No. 23 of the day before.
In other words, an update that contains 192 new words of information — and the bulk of that new information has to do with how donations should be handled through the proper channels, and not be dropped off at evacuation centres.
The two releases list 19 significant fires — but of those, the majority of which are out of control, only one has any updated information between fire bulletin No. 23 and fire bulletin No. 24. The June 4 bulletin says that fire NO002, near Lynn Lake, has grown from 67,000 hectares to 71,067 hectares. The rest of the fires, apparently, hadn't burned any additional land or increased in size at all in that time — which is obviously not the case.
This isn't to say that the information provided isn't useful and necessary — it's just woefully incomplete.
The paucity of up-to-date information in those releases wouldn't matter if the provincial government had officials available who could answer media questions about fire suppression and emergency services and evacuation programs — the problem is that they don't.
The government finally held a news conference on Thursday, the first since May 28. It was held, in part, to announce an information portal for Manitobans affected by the wildfires.
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The news conference is available for all Manitobans online.
It was the first opportunity in a week for the media to ask questions about the fires. Hopefully, the government will see the value in providing media with access to the most information possible.
There's real value in having living, breathing humans who can give cogent answers to media questions to allow us to inform the public.
Will that happen?
Time will tell.