Province’s fire situation ‘fairly stable’

Despite hot, dry conditions, fires in northeastern Saskatchewan have not grown or crept closer to the community of Pelican Narrows in the last 24 hours.

During a media briefing on Wednesday, the province’s executive director of wildfire management described Saskatchewan’s fire situation as “fairly stable.”

Steve Roberts said provincial crews are stationed in Pelican Narrows protecting homes and infrastructure, but the surrounding fires are proving difficult to battle.

“In the Pelican Narrows area, because it’s dry, because of the volatile fuels and the wind shifts, we’ve had very few areas where we’ve been able to stabilize the fire front, where it’s safe enough to put people on the ground in front of such a large fire,” Roberts said.

As of Wednesday, 2,515 people had fled south from the northern communities of Pelican Narrows, Birch Portage, Jan Lake and Sandy Bay. The majority — 1,657 people — are in Prince Albert, while the rest are in Saskatoon.

Of the evacuees in Saskatoon, 515 are in hotels, 182 are staying with friends or family and 161 are at the Henk Ruys Soccer Centre.

Deanna Valentine, a spokeswoman for Saskatchewan’s emergency social services department, said the province is making every effort to ensure evacuees are safe, have things to do and are not disrupting neighbourhoods where they have been dropped in en masse.

In Saskatoon, recreational activities for evacuees have included movie nights, bingo nights, bowling and a trip to the zoo.