Wildfire, smoke forces evacuation of Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation

CBC

2 days ago

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Wildfires in northern Manitoba are forcing thousands of residents from a First Nation out of their homes over poor air quality and concerns that flames might engulf the only road access to the community.
Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation (NCN) was put under a mandatory full evacuation order on Saturday.
Deputy Chief Marcel Moody told CBC News roughly 300 priority residents — including seniors, children and people with underlying health conditions — have so far left Nisichawayasihk for Winnipeg.
"I've never seen anything like this in my entire life," Moody said.
"The smoke situation has been terrible all summer … it gets worse at certain times, and we are scared the road might be closed."
By Sunday morning, more than 3,000 residents were still in Nisichawayasihk. The expectation is most of the residents waiting to be evacuated will be out in the coming days.
"We want to do this as quickly as possible to make sure that nobody is stuck," Moody said.
"It's a tough task, but we have to do it."
One of the closest wildfires is burning about half an hour away from the Nisichawayasihk, Moody said, and there are fears wind might fan the flames toward the road that connects the community with Thompson, about an hour's drive away, and engulf Highway 391, the only land access point in or out.
Closure of the road because of the wildfire has already slowed down the evacuation, Moody said.
Bus routes out of Nisichawayashik were ground to a halt between 10 a.m. Saturday and 7 a.m. on Sunday after the road was closed because of the threat of the wildfire.
"It's a concern for the community and for our people," the deputy chief said.
Highway 391 remains closed to passenger traffic and is only open for emergency vehicles and evacuees, the province said in a news release at around 12:30 p.m. Sunday.
The latest data from Manitoba's wildfire services map shows at least two wildfires burning north of Nisichawayasihk— also known as Nelson House — including one that has grown to over 46,000 hectares by Saturday.
According to the province's latest fire bulletin, issued Wednesday, the Manitoba Wildfire Service was responding to 127 active wildfires across the province, which has seen a total of 351 wildfires to date, well above the average for this time of year of 276.
'A terrible summer'
For about 600 residents in Nisichawayasihk, this is their second evacuation in less than a month. The Cree Nation declared a state of emergency in July due to heavy smoke billowing from wildfires and polluting the air.
Hundreds of vulnerable residents, including dozens living in a personal care home, were evacuated from the community. But most of the 600 evacuees had already returned home by last week and now they are being forced out of their homes once again, Moody said.
"It's been a terrible summer," he said.
"People have been breathing the smoke pretty much the whole summer, [we] don't know what the impact is gonna be … long-term for people's health. A lot of our people are asthmatic [or] have respiratory issues."
The evacuations at this time have mostly been co-ordinated by Nisichawayasihk with support from the Red Cross and Indigenous Services Canada at this time.
While some evacuees will stay at a monastery, the majority of evacuees will go to the RBC Convention Centre in Winnipeg, where the province has set up one congregate shelter.
"People are stressed out, people don't want to leave their communities, they don't know what's happening," Moody said.