While recent rain has helped crews while fighting forest fires in Manitoba, provincial officials still say they are prepared to house thousands of evacuees more if necessary, since 122 fires now actively burn in the province.
Currently, a total of approximately 12,000 people are outside their homes due to forest fire evacuations in Manitoba, with more than half in hotels throughout the province, and more than 1,000 each of each one of each permanence in hotels in Ontario and shelters gathered in Winnipeg, Christine Stevens, assistant of minister of the organization of Manitoba of emergency management, said in a conference on a press Monday.
Although new evacuations have not been ordered in the last 24 hours, Stevens said the province has more than 5,000 beds more ready to function if necessary, with waiting sites in Winnipeg and Portage La Prairie.
“The decision to evacuate is not taken light. It is taken based on real -time evaluations of risk, access to the road, smoke and the medical needs of communities,” Stevens said, with final decisions on evacuations taken by local leadership.
The update occurs days after Thompson officials warned the approximately 13,000 residents of the city of the North at the end of last week to prepare for a possible evacuation such as a fire out of control, just north of the community.
But with a “quite decent climate” that help the fire fighting efforts recently, the officials now feel “quite safe” in the protections established between the fire and the city, Kristin Hayward, vice -minister assistant to the service of conservation officers and the Infire Westfire Service of Manitoba, in the press conference of Monday.
“Of course, there is always a stranger,” said Hayward. “The weather can create different situations, but according to what we have done to date, we feel quite well about where we are with Thompson.”
Stevens said that although there are plans in his place if Thompson has to evacuate, for now, residents are “simply in a retention pattern while we monitor.”
“If it is necessary for the community to evacuate, if the risk is presented in such a way that a proactive or early evacuation is needed, then that decision will be made, but we are not in that circumstance at this time,” he said.
Until Monday, 12,736 square kilometers have burned in Manitoba this fire season: 2.3 percent of the province’s surface, said the government.
Firefighters have progressed in a series of fires that burn near the communities and have been helped by the climate in northern parts of Manitoba, including areas near Leaf Rapids and Thompson, said Hayward.
The crews have also made some incursions into fires near Split Lake, Garden Hill and Snow Lake communities and continue to fight against Lynn Lake and Cross Lake’s fires and a new one near York Landing, he said.
A fire out of control in the Nopiming Provincial Park area in eastern Manitoba remains the main concern in that region. He is burning north in the provincial park of Atikaki and in Ontario, said Hayward.
A total of 297 forest fires in Manitoba have been reported so far this year, said Hayward, above the average of 20 years from 217 until Monday.
The province also continues to receive help from firefighters and incident management equipment from outside Manitoba, including more than 200 people from Mexico, more than 20 Minnesota, seven from New Zealand and 11 from Parks Canada.
More people from Australia and New Zealand and a group of Quebec water bombers are also expected, said Hayward.
