More leaving northeast as wildfires grow

Residents of the small northeastern community of Tyrrell Lake are the latest to head south as fires in the area threaten homes and infrastructure.

While a mandatory evacuation order has not been issued, Steve Roberts, the province’s executive director of wildfire management, said four permanent residents and other people who have recreational cabins in the area were advised Monday afternoon that it was in their best interests to leave.

“The fire did not actually reach there, but for now we currently have the recommendation that they don’t return until we’ve given them leave to do so,” Roberts said.

Tyrrell Lake is about 25 kilometres northwest of the City of Flin Flon, which sits on the Saskatchewan-Manitoba border. It’s about 70 kilometres southeast of Pelican Narrows, which has been under a mandatory evacuation order since late August.

Roberts said bulldozer guards and sprinkler units are protecting all infrastructure in the community, including a SaskTel communications tower.

People in Tyrrell Lake are the latest to be affected by the Granite fire, which has grown to 110,000 hectares in size (a football field is roughly one hectare).

As of Tuesday morning, 2,797 people were registered to receive emergency social services support because fires in the north had displaced them from their homes.

Most of those people — 1,990 of them — are in Prince Albert, while 807 are in Saskatoon. Deanna Valentine, a spokeswoman for Saskatchewan’s emergency social services department, said if evacuees in Prince Albert are able to move to Saskatoon, it will ease the pressure on Prince Albert.

“We would encourage that if there are people who have friends or family in Saskatoon or who would like to come to Saskatoon voluntarily, that that offer is open,” Valentine said.

“Although I want to make it clear that we’re not actually compelling people to move; just we recognize that the numbers in P.A. are pretty high and if people are willing to move to Saskatoon to help us equalize those numbers, we’d appreciate that.”