Some Manitoba communities start preparing to welcome wildfire evacuees back — but threat not gone yet

CBC

a day ago

As Manitoba continues battling out-of-control wildfires that have forced thousands of people out of their homes, some communities are making plans to allow people to start coming back — but it will still take some time before that actually happens.
The northwestern city of Flin Flon is working on a re-entry plan that will depend on conditions, including the state of a massive out-of-control wildfire near the community and the availability of hospital and safety services like police and fire response, Deputy Mayor Alison Dallas-Funk said in a post Tuesday.
"We can't bring community back if we don't have safety services. All the safety services right now are currently being directed towards fighting fires," Dallas-Funk said in a video posted on Facebook.
"So all of our fire protection, all of the RCMP and any EMS services we have — we currently don't even have a hospital right now."
The fire near Flin Flon, about 630 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg, is the largest one burning in Manitoba, at roughly 308,000 hectares as of Wednesday, when there were 25 active wildfires burning in Manitoba, several of them out of control.
Flin Flon Mayor George Fontaine on Wednesday called it a good sign the city is starting to make plans for re-entry, but it's still "absolutely not safe all around us" for people to come back just yet.
Fontaine hopes the update gives evacuees hope and reminds them that they haven't been forgotten.
"They're not just, you know, languishing out there with nobody thinking about them," he said.
Grocery stores, gas stations and social services are also among the things that should be ready to serve people before residents start coming back, he said.
Snow Lake plans
The town of Snow Lake is also looking at plans to get people back home, though there's no specific timeline there either.
Municipal emergency co-ordinator Jodi Cockle said Wednesday that the community, which was evacuated because of the same massive fire that threatened Flin Flon, has now been deemed to be under no threat from that blaze.
"We have to ensure the safety of the residents before I can deem to return them back to community," Cockle said.
"So we'll be working closely with those agencies over the next few days here to make sure that everybody's ramped up and ready to go back to regular living here in Snow Lake."
A return to community checklist provided through Manitoba's Emergency Management Organization details essentials that need to be in place before people can go home, Cockle said.
The town was evacuated — forcing more than 1,000 people from their homes — largely due to heavy wildfire smoke affecting air quality and the threat of the community losing its escape routes, she said.
While an update from the town on Tuesday said the fire was roughly 30 kilometres from the townsite, a small amount of rain recently helped push that fire down, giving people in Snow Lake "what we needed," Cockle said.
Lynn Lake
Other communities are still mainly focused on fighting fires.
Near the northern town of Lynn Lake, for example, crews are working along the edge of a fire that's grown to over 71,000 hectares to eliminate hot spots and reduce risk, an update posted on the town's Facebook page said Tuesday.
The fire continues to pose a threat to the community, and warmer weather forecast for near the end of the week could make fire danger in the area even worse, the update said.
A mandatory evacuation order is still in place for the town. Road access into the community has been restricted and RCMP have established a manned blockade at the Black Sturgeon Falls turnoff to enforce the evacuation order.
However, Manitoba Hydro crews are scheduled to be in the community this week to start replacing infrastructure that was damaged or compromised during the wildfire fight, work the update said "will support essential power restoration efforts and help prepare for eventual re-entry."