Escaping a fire with no road out
MOST OF MANITOBA FIRST NATION AIRLIFTED TO SAFETY, OTHERS DIG IN TO BATTLE BLAZE
The people in Poplar River First Nation stood in clusters at a runway in the centre of town, each allowed a single bag, waiting for the planes to take them south, away from the wildfire.
Poplar River is near the eastern bank of Lake Winnipeg, in northern Manitoba. In the summer, there are no roads out of town; only the airport. On Wednesday, the fire was 3,000 hectares, burning six kilometres south of Poplar River. But high winds were expected to start nudging it closer, and firefighters feared that Wednesday could be the last window to get people out before a ceiling of smoke cut off the rescue planes. By Thursday or Friday, they said, the winds could push the fire into town.
First Nation leaders ordered a full evacuation, which started Tuesday afternoon. With the runway only able to accommodate small planes, evacuees were leaving in a trickle — nine people at a time, sometimes eight if the weight of their luggage was too much. Roughly 40 flights were scheduled to leave between Tuesday and Wednesday. School buses collected people at their homes and brought them to the airport. There, organizers made sure families stayed together.
A small contingent of volunteers, however, planned to stay behind to help stop the town from burning down.
“In the event that fire does come close, we’re ready,” said Ernest Bruce, the First Nation’s spokesman as well as its director of community assets. The 54-year-old was supposed to be on a flight two weeks ago, during the first phase of the evacuation for infants, seniors and people with medical conditions. Despite his prior heart problems, Bruce signed a waiver and he stayed. His wife, Joslin, stayed too, along with dozens of others from the First Nation — most of whom sit on the local emergency operations committee.
This week, Bruce said he watched his six grown children leave this week for Winnipeg, where the Red Cross is putting up 750 people from Poplar River in hotels.
“They just knew what we had to do,” he said. “I guess they were worried, but they didn’t say anything.”
Gary Friesen, manager of the Manitoba Wildfire Program, said a network of specialty sprinklers on tripods had been dousing the town for days, raising the humidity, lowering the temperature and soaking anything that might otherwise catch fire.
“You get this line of defence,” he said. “(The fire) basically doesn’t want to come to that area.” But if it does, he said, waterbombers will try to “pinch it off.”
If the fire does reach town, everyone has been instructed to head for the school gym, since the school has a metal roof and its exterior is essentially fireproof. The First Nation said there was also a set of commercial fishing boats in the river to ferry the people who stayed behind into Lake Winnipeg.
“If they feel they’re in danger, that’ll be the last resort,” Bruce said.
Between Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday evening, roughly 400 people were evacuated from Poplar River, according to the Red Cross. They joined roughly 350 others who had either been evacuated earlier this month or were out of town when lightning started the fire on Aug. 5.
As the crowd at the airport thinned on Wednesday evening, Bruce didn’t seem panicked. He couldn’t really say what was making him stay. He said he made a commitment to “do something” and he was doing it.
“We just have to sit back and wait,” he said. “Tomorrow is the day it starts to blow harder.”