A report by the provincial auditor says the Government of Saskatchewan needs “more robust” wildfire resource planning and analysis.
The conclusion is part of Auditor Tara Clemett’s first volume of her 2026 audit, which she published on Tuesday.
An audit of the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency (SPSA) found that the government needs to analyze the effectiveness of its use of wildfire resources, ensure more communities with higher wildfire risks have community wildfire preparedness plans, and set and monitor measures that would indicate when wildfires are being suppressed.
Clemett said the SPSA has also failed it to include all its expected costs when preparing its budget for responding to wildfires in the province. She found that in each of the past three years, the actual cost of the response has exceeded the initial budget by more than $70 million.
“Without strong planning, the agency risks entering each wildfire season without the optimal level of resources, resulting in increased costs and reliance on contracted services,” Clemett said, as she released the audit on Tuesday.
Clemett said that despite SPSA relying on key resources such as firefighters or waterbombers, the agency has “not adequately” determined the optimal levels needed before each wildfire season.
That means cost increases when the government needs to bring in additional resources during a busy wildfire season.
The audit comes after a devastating 2025 wildfire season that saw more than 500 fires burn approximately 3 million hectares of land, including the destruction of 200 homes in Denare Beach, Sask.
The province’s response cost more than $350 million, according to Clemett.
It’s possible some of those costs could have been avoided or mitigated through better planning, Clemett said.
Clemett’s office found that the SPSA has failed to assess costs or consistently track when contracted resources are used.
The province spent $26.3 million in 2025 on contracted resources in comparison to the $1.9 million spent in 2024.
The auditor said that in 2025, it took an average of 15 days for contracted personnel, including firefighters, to arrive and deploy to battle wildfires.
Some of those resources came from as far as Mexico and Australia, Clemett said.
“That costs a fair amount of dollars, a lot more than if you chose to employ those firefighters directly and train them before that wildfire season,” Clemett said.
Clemett said the SPSA had identified 89 northern communities in areas at higher risk for wildfires.
Despite wanting each of those communities to have a wildfire preparedness plan, the audit found that 21 of the 89 communities had not completed one.
Saskatchewan’s Opposition NDP immediately seized on the auditor’s findings, using it to once again call for Minister Tim McLeod to be removed from the province’s cabinet.
McLeod is no longer responsible for the SPSA, but was in charge during the 2025 wildfire season.
“This was a minister who failed to do his job from top to bottom. People deserve better,” NDP MLA Brent Blakley said.
Blakely said the provincial government has failed to learn from one wildfire season to the next and that the SPSA needs to be proactive in its response.
CBC requested an interview with Community Safety Minister Michael Weger to have him respond to the auditor’s findings. The provincial government provided a statement attributed to Weger, thanking Clemett for her work.
“The Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency must do better, and that is why our government has directed the agency with immediate action items based on the lessons learned from last year’s wildfire season to protect Saskatchewan people now and into the future,” the statement read.
The statement pointed to the SPSA’s future preparedness and implementation unit, which will advance and monitor the progress of 11 recommendations made by the auditor, as well as the recommendations in an MNP review of the province’s response to last year’s wildfires.
The auditor’s report was prepared independently of the MNP report and its recommendations are different than those found in the independent review.
Clemett also confirmed an audit of the SPSA’s purchase of water bombers will be part of her second volume, which will be tabled later this year.
