Brittany Hobson, The Canadian Press

Close to 13,000 people in Manitoba were out of their homes Thursday due to wildfires, but hundreds were finding space in hotels rather than in congregate shelters, the province said.

Since Monday, officials said they've found spots for 705 more people in hotels, while others are staying with family and friends or in one of four shelters in Winnipeg.

As of Wednesday night, there were about 7,000 evacuees in hotel rooms and about 1,200 in shelters, a government spokesperson said. 

Ten hotels were added to a list of 58 across the province already offering rooms.

The search of a Winnipeg-area landfill for the remains of two slain First Nations women has concluded with a new search soon set to begin at a different site for another victim.

The Manitoba government announced Thursday that crews finished looking last week through the Prairie Green landfill, just north of Winnipeg, for remains of Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran. They were among four First Nations women murdered by serial killer Jeremy Skibicki in 2022. 

"Together, we brought Morgan and Marcedes home," Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew said in a social media post. 

Staples in Mantioba's music scene and beyond offered condolences and tributes Thursday after learning the bassist in a beloved band died in a highway crash with two others.

Indie pop band Royal Canoe, on social media, said Brendan Berg died in the crash Tuesday, a day before his 43rd birthday, along with his partner, Olivia Michalczuk.

Berg's death has left an "enormous and sudden hole in the lives of everyone who knew him," the post said.

Staples in Winnipeg's music scene and beyond offered condolences and tributes Thursday after learning the bassist in a beloved band died in a highway crash with two others.

Indie pop band Royal Canoe, on social media, said Brendan Berg died in the crash Tuesday, a day before his 43rd birthday, along with his partner, Olivia Michalczuk.

Berg's death has left an "enormous and sudden hole in the lives of everyone who knew him," the post said.

Buses carrying residents from the northern city of Flin Flon were being loaded up Wednesday morning, preparing to bring them back after a menacing wildfire forced thousands to flee weeks earlier.

"Welcome home to everyone," Deputy Mayor Alison Dallas-Funk said in a Facebook video Wednesday morning.

"Can't wait to have you back in community."

Buses began leaving Winnipeg and Brandon before 10 a.m., a schedule posted online showed. Residents staying elsewhere could expect to leave for Flin Flon later Wednesday, while some travelled back on their own. 

Some wildfire evacuees staying at a shelter in northern Manitoba may be moved elsewhere as more communities return home and the government closes temporary evacuation centres.

Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Lisa Naylor said roughly 114 people have been staying at the shelter in Thompson for the past three weeks due to a shortage of hotel spaces.

"Folks have been there a really long time, and that was never the intention," Naylor told a wildfire briefing Thursday.

Race-based data collected in Manitoba's health-care systems suggests Indigenous, African and Black patients are waiting longer in Winnipeg emergency rooms and often leave without seeing a doctor.

A report examining visits to emergency rooms and broken down by race says African and Black patients are triaged at the same rate as other racial groups, but are waiting the longest, upwards of five hours in some cases.

Parker Ledoux never imagined spending the last month of her Grade 12 school year cooped up in a Winnipeg hotel room far from her home.

But when an out-of-control wildfire encroached on Creighton, Sask., at the end of last month and forced its some 1,200 people to flee, that's exactly what happened.

With graduation celebrations supposed to take place next week and community members still displaced, Ledoux is not sure what the quintessential teenage experience will look like for her and her classmates.

Winnipeg hotels were opening up Monday to evacuees who fled their homes due to raging wildfires, while to the west in Saskatchewan, thousands more were ordered to flee.

The Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency issued an alert late Monday afternoon, saying the northern town of La Ronge had ordered an evacuation as fire had breached its airport.

The agency said flames were fast-moving and that people in the community of 2,500, as well as anyone within 20 kilometres, including nearby Air Ronge and the Lac La Ronge Indian Band, had to leave immediately.

Cottage owners and disaster prevention experts in Manitoba are urging governments to develop comprehensive wildfire management plans after a pair of devastating wildfires.

Close to 1,000 people were forced from their homes last week as a wildfire near the Rural Municipality of Lac du Bonnet, spurred by dry, hot and windy conditions, burned nearby.

The quick-moving fire, which is currently being held, destroyed 28 homes and cottages and left two people dead.