THUNDER BAY – Thunder Bay Fire Rescue Chief John Hay says evacuees from fire ravaged Pikangikum First Nation are settling in nicely at their temporary home-away-from-home.
Hay on Friday said three Hercules planes full of the northern communities most vulnerable people have arrived in the city, two coming in on Thursday night, the third on Friday morning.
About 250 evacuees in total have landed in Thunder Bay.
“They’ve been settled into a local hotel and their needs are being taken care of,” Hay said. “We’re taking in the most vulnerable in the community, the elderly, people who need a little bit more care, who would require a hotel setting as opposed to an arena setting.
“And children and their families.”
Hay said while fire evacuees aren’t something communities like Thunder Bay expect, they have to be on the ready just in case, especially given how prevalent forest fires have become in Ontario’s north.
“It taxes us a little bit,” he said. “Yesterday we were actually helping the last of the Kashechewan (evacuees) go back. So our staff was working at the hotel and the airport to get them onto their last plane to get out.
“We just had them stay a little longer and accept the next group.”
Hay said each of the evacuees was given a short check-up, the fire blanketing Pikangikum First Nation with thick clouds of smoke, having roared to within a kilometre of the community of about 3,800, located 500 kilometres north of Thunder Bay, by Thursday morning.
Several communities around Ontario have been put on alert to serve as either hubs or potential hosts, including Sioux Lookout, Cochrane, Kapuskasing, Timmins and Hearst.
Hay said it’s not clear how long the evacuees will remain in Thunder Bay and also didn’t rule out the possibility of more arriving – although he said they’ve already filled the host hotel and having to host more Pikangikum First Nation residents at another hotel could prove difficult from a logistics standpoint.
“It basically doubles our work, but right now we’re confident that all the vulnerable people that need to get out will be getting out in the next day or so,” Hay said.
Their return home will depend on how firefighting efforts go, as well as the weather.
