PRINCE ALBERT – Officials from the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency are seeing the weather cooperating with respect to fighting wildfires, and some evacuees are beginning to return home.
But there are still many wildfires in progress as well as concerns raised Tuesday from the office of the Provincial Ombudsman about the handling of the evacuation and the length of time it was taking for evacuees to receive help from the province.
According to the latest update Tuesday, currently there are 23 active wildfires, bringing the total to 257 wildfires so far this year, compared to their five year average of 146.
SPSA Vice President of Operations Steve Roberts said the weather “has been cooperating with us, and the cooler temperatures and lower winds are allowing us to get more handle on some of these fires, putting crews into some of these areas that were too dangerous and high risk before. So we continue to make progress on each of the fires of note.”
As well, Roberts said because of the moderate weather, they will be revising the fire ban this afternoon, and “all areas north of the Churchill River that have received significant rain will be removed from the fire ban. For the area in south of the Churchill and the provincial forest, we will continue to monitor that, and we will make amendments to that as the weather improves.”
Of the fires of note, Roberts said the SHOE Fire is 503,000 hectares in size. Highway 912, 913 remain closed due to this fire.
The JAYSMITH Fire northeast of Missinipe is 139,000 hectares. No road closures or impacts at this time from this fire.
The DITCH Fire by Weyakwin is 170,000 hectares in size.
The PISEW Fire, which is impacting La Ronge into the west of La Ronge, sees closures on Highway 2 North in the vicinity of La Ronge to limit the amount of non-essential traffic through that area. Currently the fire is estimated at 181,000 hectares.
The PELICAN Fire, adjacent to Pelican Narrows, current size 34,000 hectares. There are no road closures, with Highway 135 open to both Pelican Narrows and Sandy Bay at this time.
“After today, those two fires will be considered one fire of note because they are immediately adjacent and are being managed centrally at the same time. So after today, the WOLF and the CLUB will just be referred to as a single fire of note.”
Roberts adds that not only has the fire behavior improved, “but our ability to contain and limit impact to some structures is we are starting to see some communities return.”
Some individuals from Pelican Narrows and area have begun to return and Weyakwin has allowed their residents to return home. Roberts adds operations are under way to return some people home to Timber Bay.
In addition the FORAN mine site that had been evacuated a number of days ago, has “already started staged repatriation of all of their workforce back into that mine site to recommence operations. And the SPSA continues to work and inform local leadership of improving conditions and limitations to repatriation so that decisions can be made about terminating evacuations and bringing residents home to their communities.”
33 communities remain evacuated or partially evacuated in the province. SPSA is supporting 860 individuals while the Canadian Red Cross is supporting 9,160 individuals.
There have been 295 confirmed values that have been burnt by fire, a number Roberts said will continue to grow.
Evacuee concerns still being raised
Concerns about the evacuation were front and centre at the latest update with officials addressing a number of the concerns that have been raised, including those of Denare Beach residents wondering what has happened with their homes.
“And although I know there’s a lot of evacuees that have not been notified yet, we want to make sure 100 per cent sure that those individuals or those properties are either damaged or destroyed or not damaged. So before we contact them, we know they’re waiting for that information, but I can assure everyone that that process is ongoing as we speak.”
He said SPSA is currently supporting 850 individuals in hotels. “We have many, many other individuals across Saskatchewan in other hotels. Once we become aware of them, we immediately look after their needs while we’re waiting for repatriation efforts from the community leadership and SPSA.”
Pritchard also acknowledged that “there is a backlog in some of our evacuation support. We have currently scaled up with 14 additional staff to help address that backlog. And currently we are triaging those. And what I mean by that is we’re looking at the most urgent. We know that many of those individuals that have self-evacuated are staying safely with the family and friends. And although they need support, they’re not in a critical position, or many of them are not in a critical position where others are.”
The ones they are working on are “immediate and need either support with food vouchers, some financial support or a hotel. So those are the ones that we’re working on. And we’re going to get through that backlog as quickly as humanly possible.”
Pritchard adds that at the seven sites that SPSA is working on, “we have staff on site basically from eight in the morning to 12 midnight. We support the evacuees in many different activities. We ensure that they get their food and shelter, but also emergency clothing. And we have partnered with some NGOs to help with psycho-social supports, as well as we partnered with SHA to ensure that they have medical access when and if needed.”
With respect to supports, Pritchard said those “financial supports, if they haven’t been rolled out right now, they will be retroactive. They will be retroactive to the evacuation date. But we’re really working on our, I guess, the best that we can to get those either food vouchers or financial support out the door as quickly as we can.”
As for the provincial Ombudsman’s criticisms of the evacuee response from the province, Pritchard replied he was “not completely aware of everything the Ombudsman may have said. But like I said before, we are supporting the evacuees in the hotels. We have many across the province that are being supported in other hotels with their food, shelter activities.
“But absolutely, we acknowledge that there is a backlog in some of those evacuation supports that have been, you know, for the vast majority of what I’m hearing is with family and friends. And we are doing our best. We have brought in extra resources to deal with that backlog.”
When asked if the evacuation response has been adequate, Pritchard said that what he could say is “that those that needed immediate hotels and those that needed immediate shelter and food, we did our utmost best to put them into two hotels. We acknowledge that there is a gap for those that have self-evacuated, and we are doing our utmost best to fix that.
“But I don’t know if there’s a standard. I can tell you that it was chaotic a couple days, but now that the situation on the response is stabilizing, and we are able to reassign staff and upscale some of those support mechanisms, we’re going to absolutely address the backlog of calls for those individuals that have gone to family and friends. And as I said earlier, the supports will be to the date that they evacuated.”
As for the provincial Ombudsman’s concerns about the length of time it was taking for people to hear back, Pritchard was asked if he could guarantee that people who needed help would hear back immediately or within 24 hours.
“I can tell you that we are doing everything humanly possible to answer the calls in that period,” said Pritchard. “We do have a backlog that we have to address as well. So absolutely, that is the goal that we are, is to ensure that everyone that is looking for the supports are connected to somebody within SPSA so that those mechanisms can be put in place to get those supports, whether they be a hotel, food vouchers, or financial support. We are striving to tighten that process up and as you say, we’re going to try to get it within exactly those time frames.”
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