Most evacuees from Waterhen Lake First Nation are returning home as crews continue to fight two out of control wildfires in Saskatchewan.
Wildfire management authorities said the evacuation order was lifted Thursday evening for residents with no health issues as there were no perimeter boundary breaches by the Tuff fire in the last 24 hours.
“There was a thought at one time the fire would cause a direct obstruction to people getting in and out of the community,” said Ray Unrau, the province’s director of operations for emergency management and fire safety.
“That concern has since been managed by wildfire management, so that concern was gone and the community decided to go back in.”
Those who are still not able to return home due to health issues – roughly 25 people – remain in Saskatoon hotels.
The Tuff fire – which has grown to over 5,100 hectares in size – is one of two wildfires not yet contained in the province.
Steve Roberts, Saskatchewan’s executive director of wildfire management, said crews are digging in to bring it under control but a change in the weather will not help.
“The goal is containment as soon as we can on all sides and then we’ll start working into the centre of the fire,” Roberts said during Friday’s briefing.
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The other concern is the Rally fire near the communities of Crutwell and Holbein, west of Prince Albert.
Roberts said crews have been able to take advantage of favourable weather over the last two days and hope to bring it under control within a day.
Residents in the area remain under an advisory to be prepared to evacuate immediately if the need arises.
Roberts said no serious injuries have been reported but one outbuilding and a bulldozer were lost in the Rally fire.
Crews are also assisting with the Rabbit fire burning in the southwest corner of Prince Albert National Park.
There have been 159 wildfires so far in 2018, well above the five-year average of 98 for this time of year, despite a late start to the wildfire season.
Roberts said there had been almost no fires by the third week of April, but that changed quickly.
“Once the snow left and the melt-off occurred, (we) received no precipitation and we rapidly caught up to our average season and we’re well past it by now,” Roberts said.
He said it’s too early to tell if the dry conditions will lead to a long and active wildfire season.
“Our fire seasons are basically predicated on big weather systems that will come through,” Roberts said.
“It’s were they come in, how often they come in and whether they do or do not come in with lightning.
“That will drive the rest of our fire season for this year.”
He added that despite rain in the last couple of days, a fire ban remains in place for Crown land and provincial parks south of the Churchill River.
“Our weather projections over the next couple of days is that it’s going to go back to warm and dry, so any advantage that those would have produced are going to rapidly disappear.”
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