First Nations call for emergency action in north as Creighton, Flin Flon added to list of wildfire evacuations
Another 2,000 residents have been evacuated from three more Saskatchewan communities due to raging wildfires in the province's north.
Mandatory evacuation orders were issued late Wednesday night for Denare Beach, Creighton and just across the Manitoba border to neighbouring Flin Flon as a fire that started on Sunday continues to spread toward those communities. An evacuation was also issued for the hamlet of Weyakwin, which is north of Prince Albert, near Montreal Lake Cree Nation.
Approximately 1,900 people live in Creighton and nearby Denare Beach, in addition to the 6,000 people in Flin Flon and surrounding area. Manitoba premier Wab Kinew declared a provincial state of emergency late Wednesday.
Lac La Ronge Indian Band, Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation and Montreal Lake Cree Nation are calling on Saskatchewan's provincial government to do the same. The three First Nations declared local states of emergency in a joint statement issued late Wednesday, saying they are concerned with 'critical shortages' in firefighting resources to meet the severity of the threat to their communities.
All three nations' chiefs called for 'immediate action' from the provincial and federal governments to provide more personnel, air bombers and emergency support for evacuees.
Grand Chief Brian Hardlotte of the Prince Albert Grand Council is asking Premier Scott Moe and Prime Minister Mark Carney to secure more resources and to meet with leaders of the affected First Nations to co-ordinate.
'This is the time for real partnership and action,' said a statement from Hardlotte, who's a member of Lac La Ronge Indian Band.
Moe is expected to speak Thursday afternoon on the situation.
Chief Peter Beatty of Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation said more than 5,500 people have been evacuated from Pelican Narrows, Denare Beach and area, with 'thousands more at risk.'
Communities are becoming 'boxed in by fire and smoke' and emergency teams in Morning Lake and Brabant Lake are evacuating people by boat and helicopter, said the joint statement.
'We are doing everything possible on the ground, but this situation is beyond our capacity to manage alone,' Beatty said in the release.
Steve Roberts, vice-president of operations for the Saskatchewan Public Safety (SPSA), said Tuesday that all of the province's resources have been deployed, with air tankers from Quebec and Alaska already in rotation.
'We've gone to our Canadian partners and our other mutual aid partners to get more resources,' he said in a media conference.
Roberts said the province is seeing an unusually intense level of wildfires in number, size and severity for May.
'I have been running this agency operation for wildfire for 21 years, and this is probably the busiest, most active landscape fire level we've had this early in the season,' he said.
More than 8,300 people from northern Saskatchewan are currently on active evacuation orders, and many other communities on pre-alert. As of Thursday morning, 17 wildfires are actively burning, according to the SPSA.
Stay tuned here for updates.
— with files from Alec Salloum, Canadian Press
lkurz@postmedia.com
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