"This will be a May long where we're asking for rain."
Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew made that comment Thursday morning in addressing the current fire situation in our province.
As Kinew was speaking those words, the closure of Whiteshell Provincial Park took effect. All access to the park is now restricted. This includes all public and private developed areas in Whiteshell Provincial Park including cottage subdivisions, commercial areas, campgrounds, group use, day use, and all recreational areas including trails, beaches, backcountry areas, canoe routes, and campsites. All park users, including full-time residents, commercial operators, and cottagers, along with campers at various provincial park campgrounds, must leave the park by Thursday at 1 pm.
Kinew started his address Thursday morning by offering sincere condolences to the family, friends, and community members who lost two loved ones in the fires this week in the Rural Municipality of Lac du Bonnet.
"The news of this loss of life changes what was an emergency into a tragedy," says Kinew. "The flags are flying at half-mast here at the Manitoba Legislature as a small gesture towards the sympathies that we feel, and how this latest turn in this year's wildfire situation hits on a different emotional level."
Kinew's message to Manitobans is to do the right thing by listening to evacuation orders and to not start fires.
"Any fire that goes out of control, even in an area that's not dealing with wildfire could potentially pull resources away from the front lines where we urgently need help," he explains.
Kristin Hayward is Assistant Deputy Minister, responsible for the Wildfire Service. She says as of Thursday morning, 21 active fires are burning in Manitoba and that so far this year we have had 80. According to Hayward, the 20-year average for fires to this point in the year is 48.
"So, you can see that as of today we are well above average for this time of year," she explains.
Hayward says the fire in the Rural Municipality of Piney continues to burn out of control. It resulted in the evacuation of Woodridge Wednesday evening. Hayward says this fire is about 7,000 hectares in size, noting the area received some rain Wednesday evening.
"We are still waiting on reports of how much rain fell over the specific fire," says Hayward. "But we'll take anything we can get at this point."
As for the Bird River fire, Hayward says it remained very intense on Wednesday. She notes that fire is still expected to be over 100,000 hectares in size.
"Thick smoke was really hampering our efforts to get on top of the fire with air support," she explains. "So, we shifted our focus to value protection efforts for the properties where it was safe for us to get in and do that work."
The Lac du Bonnet fire also continues to burn out of control. Hayward says it is currently about 4,000 hectares in size. She notes crews have been able to make good progress on this fire, which has not been as intense as the Bird River fire.
"We are able to put a lot of resources on that and make good progress," she says. "But I will still remind folks it is out of control and an active wildfire zone, and we need people to stay out of the area."
Hayward says the Ingolf fire is also still burning out of control and is currently about 23,000 hectares in size. She notes the focus on both sides of the border has been on value protection.
"Ontario has been doing value protection of properties there for a number of days," she says. "On the Manitoba side on the Whiteshell, we are doing assessments of which properties need to be protected and deploying resources in collaboration with the Office of the Fire Commissioner to start some of that work."
Hayward adds they have made a request through the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre for an additional 80 firefighters to come to Manitoba. These could be coming from across our country.
Meanwhile, according to Kinew, Wednesday night's evacuation in Woodridge involved about 300 residents. That brings the total number of evacuees in our province, from wildfires to more than 1,000. He notes this is probably lower than the actual number, as many individuals have not yet registered.
"We do ask folks if you are out to please register, it helps us more than anything to be able to account for people when it comes to safety," he explains. "But also, very importantly it helps to make sure that people are going to get the emergency social services and other supports that you need while you are out of your homes."
Kinew says a big thank you to all those communities hosting evacuees, including Steinbach, Morris, Altona, and Winnipeg.
Kinew adds that Thursday morning Manitoba will be declaring a state of local emergency in Whiteshell Provincial Park. This will allow emergency workers the powers they need. It also helps ensure that the evacuation will proceed in a manner that keeps Manitobans safe. And the state of local emergency allows crews to fight the wildfire situation with efficiency.
According to Kinew, the Whiteshell closure impacts about 239 permanent residences as well as commercial operators. He notes everyone will be asked to leave with the exception of critically important park staff and those needed to fight the fires.
He notes the reason they decided to close the entire park, even though not all areas are impacted at the same level, is because several fires are burning out of control in the park, and there is a limited number of access roads. Furthermore, he says we lost lives in Manitoba this week.
"This is a serious situation, and I think everyone will understand that we are going to definitely take the cautious and safety-minded approach in this situation," he adds.
Meanwhile, Kinew says this will be a challenging May long weekend in Manitoba. He notes while fires burn out of control in the east, there are overland flooding warnings in the west. Further to that, Hayward says the gusty east wind today will not be helpful for the Ingolf fire.
"That's definitely not the wind direction or speed that we were wanting," she says. "We're a little jealous of what the southwest corner is getting for rain today."