‘We're okay': Sask. wildfire evacuee hopeful community will be spared from flames
Mary Bottrell was camping with her sisters about four hours from home when she heard Beauval was being evacuated. There was no time to go back and grab her things.
'Now we can't go home, we can't get back in, the roads are closed,' Bottrell said in an interview with CTV News on Tuesday.
She and her sisters are staying in Saskatoon until they can return home. Bottrell said she worries for her sons who are still in Beauval, but she's hopeful the fire won't reach the community.
'There's a lot of firefighters there that came in from all over to help, so we're okay, I think,' she said.
Barb Loucks, another Beauval resident, said she left everything behind.
'If we lose it, we lose it. We have our lives, that's all that matters,' Loucks said.
Beauval is currently under threat from the 'Muskeg' fire, which spans roughly 33,967 hectares – nearly double the size of Regina. The Dore fire is also a concern, with the mayor of Beauval estimating it's about 13 kilometres from the community.
'We can't let people back into the community until we're out of danger from those fires, because they can travel in one day. That distance is nothing,' Rick Laliberte, mayor of Beauval told CTV News.
The village has extended its local state of emergency until July 18. Laliberte said the community needs significant rainfall.
Crawford Luke, a meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, said there's a bit of rain in the forecast for northern communities, but it's nothing substantial.
'Not seeing any substantial rainfall systems on the horizon. But, in the summer season we can still get some pretty good rainfall amounts from thunderstorms,' Luke said.
As of Tuesday afternoon, there were 70 wildfires burning in the province, 15 were not contained, according to the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency.
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