THUNDER BAY - A massive forest fire burning 16 kilometres southwest of Keewayin First Nation has forced more than 100 people to evacuate the community as fire conditions across the western portion of the region remain high to extreme.
On Tuesday, 87 people were evacuated from Keewayin First Nation to Sioux Lookout aboard three flights. More than 120 additional evacuees are expected to arrive on Wednesday and the Municipality of Sioux Lookout has declared a state of emergency to ensure all resources are available to assist the evacuees.
“In concert with our private sector partners, we are able to lodge up to 210 phase-one evacuees (elderly, young children, pregnant women and people needing specific health supports), and ensure their comfort,” said Brian MacKinnon, manager of Corporate Services and municipal clerk and public information officer with the Sioux Lookout Emergency Control Group.
Red Lake Fire 23, located 16 kilometres southwest of Keewayin, is being monitored by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry and was originally described by Lemieux as being 37,000 hectares in size, but has since been updated and is now listed at 54,000 hectares.
“Smoke impacts are going to be significant with a fire that large,” said Roger Lemieux, fire operations supervisor with the MNRF. “We are expecting throughout the north once it dries out a little bit here again we are going to see a lot of smoke in the air.”
Several crews from the Northwest are also expected to return from assisting the province of Alberta battle several large wildfires.
Lemieux said by next week all staff will be back in the region and crews from Northeastern Ontario will also be travelling to the area to assist.
An incident response team will be sent to Red Lake Fire 23 and Lemieux said they will be looking at possible suppression efforts or protection for Keewayin First Nation.
There are currently 19 active fires in varying states of control throughout the region, though the Red Lake area has been the most active.
“Red Lake over the last several days has been extremely busy with the lightning fires they have picked up in the last week,” Lemieux said. “They’ve gained in size throughout and Sunday was a pretty bad day with dry and windy conditions.”
“We had more lightning as recently as last night. We already picked up eight fires at the end of the day last night and one already this morning.”
Conditions throughout much of the western portion of the region remain high to extreme, while the central portion is listed as moderate after receiving precipitation over the last day and a half.
“But that’s going to take a day to get back into high and extreme and I expect we are going to be busy with the fresh lightning that we recently had,” Lemieux said.
Thunderstorms are expected to move through the area Wednesday afternoon through Thursday.
Lemieux said there are no immediate plans for a fire ban at this time, but if the region does not receive a significant amount of rainfall with the upcoming thunderstorms, there will be ongoing discussions next week.
“We are going to be dealing with a lot of lightning-caused fires over the next little bit, so any human-caused fires are going to be challenging our resources as well,” he said.
