Wildfire evacuee numbers climb above 17,000 in Manitoba, premier says

The number of wildfire evacuees in Manitoba has increased, with more likely as a handful of communities remain on alert.

“The numbers have continued to grow. We were saying 17,000. I think we can safely assume it’s north of that number now,” Premier Wab Kinew said on CBC Manitoba’s Information Radio on Thursday morning.

He didn’t have an estimate on the total but said about 16,800 people are now registered with the Canadian Red Cross.

“And keep in mind, not everyone registers with us. Some folks, they just make the decision they’re going to stay with family,” Kinew said.

It’s been eight days since he declared a provincewide state of emergency due to rapidly spreading wildfires and extreme fire conditions in northern and eastern Manitoba. Since then, the northwestern part of the province has also become a danger zone.

There are 15 communities under mandatory evacuation orders and another three under voluntary evacuation. 

Three others — Snow Lake, Norway House and Chemawawin Cree Nation (Easterville) — are under evacuation alerts or notices, with people ordered to be ready to leave with short notice.

“We are in a new reality when it comes to wildfires. Typically, we would have one part of the province dealing with challenges and … there’d be, like, maybe two communities on evacuation in other summers. This year, it’s every region at the same time,” Kinew said.

“So that’s one thing that we need to plan for in the future.”

The pace at which everything has been happening has also opened an unfortunate door to misinformation on social media, Kinew said. To combat that, the province is launching a digital information portal later on Thursday.

“It is striking during a state of emergency how quickly false claims can make their way around social media that actually pull away time and resources from people who would otherwise be co-ordinating an evacuation effort or responding to the actual wildfires themselves,” Kinew said.

Watch as the northern Manitoba wildfires grow

Three days after last week’s evacuation of the city of Flin Flon, rumours sprouted on social media about firefighters being killed while battling the blaze.

“I realize people are driven by stress in some cases, and in other cases by a compassionate response to try and get information out there, but … to have the added stress of some false information being shared on social media was counterproductive,” Kinew said.

The province’s info portal “will be a trusted source of information on fires, where to find evacuation supports, how [people] can help in the response,” he said.

The province will also begin holding regular, but not necessarily daily, news briefings. The first of those is scheduled for 12:45 p.m. Thursday.

As of Wednesday (the most recent data available), a total of 513,803 hectares had burned in the province. Last year at this time, 43,141 hectares had been impacted.

Manitoba’s fire situation report shows there are 27 active wildfires and a total of 111 fires to date, which is well above the average of 91 for this time of year.

Kinew on Thursday also defended the province’s decision to send evacuees to Ontario, addressing criticisms that suggested Manitoba was unprepared to respond to the demand.

“That is the Manitoba response, just to be clear,” he said. The province hired a private firm to manage the evacuee response, “and they found rooms in Niagara.”

“Earlier in this same wildfire season, Ontario didn’t have rooms and we housed more than 1,000 Ontario evacuees here. I think one of the things that we’re seeing this year is that we have to have a pan-provincial — a national — response, just given the scale of the emergency we’re facing.”

The ability to get people, within a week, out of harm’s way and into shelters and provide wraparound supports is a testament to the emergency management team in Manitoba and partners like Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak, the Manitoba Métis Federation and municipal leaders across northern Manitoba, Kinew said.

One of the other challenges the province has had to address is ensuring thousands of evacuees, especially those in major centres like Winnipeg, are kept safe from exploitation.

“It is one of the very disturbing things about this, that even in the midst of the vast, vast majority of Manitobans stepping up and donating or volunteering, that there is a small group of people who are also trying to show up and prey on evacuees,” Kinew said.

“You can let your mind wander to some of the really bad behaviours that this might encompass.”

To counter that, security guards and other resources have been installed around evacuation centres, and police are working with First Nations safety officers, he said.

“If there’s a criminal act going on, there’s going to be accountability. Somebody’s going to get arrested,” Kinew said.

And then there’s what he calls “a fourth layer of response,” meaning help from community groups in Winnipeg like the Downtown Community Safety Partnership, the Bear Clan and Ogijiita Pimatiswin Kinamatwin (OPK), an Indigenous-led organization that supports at-risk youth affected by gangs, poverty and violence.

“We’ve been working with them to ensure that they’re, in some cases, that insulating security layer around people to protect them from bad actors,” Kinew said.

“In other cases, this is about somebody struggling, and we do have crisis stabilization unit, public health nurses and, you know, the medical professionals at each of these shelter sites and reception centres.”

Mandatory evacuations are in place for:

Voluntary evacuation orders are in place for:

Are you an evacuee who needs assistance? Contact Manitoba 211 by calling 211 from anywhere in Manitoba or email [email protected].

Find the latest wildfire information: