A wildfire along Manitoba’s western border is now threatening Flin Flon, with flames coming from all four sides, the city’s mayor says, as some living just outside the northern community have lost their homes to flames.
Flin Flon Mayor George Fontaine said though so far no structures have been burned within the city limits, he still doesn’t feel any more confident about the future of the city of 5,000 than he did a week ago, when residents were evacuating.
“I’m just absolutely impressed on, you know, what it is that the people up there have been able to do to make sure … our community is not gone. And it certainly could have been gone,” he said in an interview in the Winnipeg area Tuesday afternoon.
But “I’m terrified,” he said. “When I left, I didn’t think I’d ever see my home again — and I’m not confident that I will. But I hope to.”
An update from the City of Flin Flon issued Tuesday said airport staff have now also been evacuated from the community for their safety, while electrical power has now been restored following a Monday night outage, and resulting water and sewer challenges have also been resolved.
Crews are now focused on areas west of Creighton, just across the provincial border from Flin Flon in Saskatchewan, the update said.
But not everyone’s homes were saved from the flames. Just outside the city of Flin Flon on Sally’s Beach Road, Michelle Szott said her family cottage was lost, along with years’ worth of photos and other family items.
“Just how could this possibly have happened is the almighty question,” said Szott, who lives in Alberta but grew up in the Flin Flon area and visits about four months of the year.
“It’s a hard thing to understand, you know, how quickly that our lives have changed in that respect.”
In an interview Tuesday, Szott said she and her husband were at the cottage about two weeks ago, but didn’t realize it would be the last time they saw it before the “complete shock and devastation” of the recent wildfires.
“I just said to my husband last night, ‘Why didn’t we grab the photo albums?” she said.
“And I just — I bleed for the people that are permanent residents that have lost absolutely everything. And I can’t even express it in words.”
The fires near Flin Flon are also threatening nearby Saskatchewan communities, including Denare Beach, where some residents watched through doorbell cameras as their homes burned down.
Though technically in different provinces, the communities are close enough that many residents come to Flin Flon to shop, work, attend church and more, Mayor Fontaine said.
“They have different community names and that sort of thing, but they’re all Flin Floners,” Fontaine said. “We are a community, very much so.”
That includes people like Elaine Angelski, who lives in Denare Beach but works in Flin Flon as a teacher at the local high school.
While Angelski said as far as she knows, her home seems to have been spared so far, she felt sick when she heard about the devastation the fires had caused.
“It was awful. It was an immediate stress response,” she said. “I just started to shake, and felt like I was going to vomit, actually.”
Angelski and her brother Lyle, who lives in nearby Creighton, have evacuated from their homes and are for now staying in Opaskwayak Cree Nation, about 100 kilometres south of Flin Flon, along with her two elderly dogs. But she said accommodations that work for her brother, who uses a wheelchair, have been hard to come by.
“It’s one day at a time, one hour at a time. And trying to be prepared for the next step, you know, trying to make sure that if we do [leave], we have somewhere else to go,” she said, adding she’s been looking into whether any care homes or similar facilities have an extra bed where her brother could stay.
Mayor Fontaine urged people to understand that crews are working with a “complete lack of equipment right across the province” because of how many fires are burning, and warned Flin Flon residents not to try to come back to their homes before it’s safe.
“People say, ‘Couldn’t you put sprinklers on my roof?’ We could have, if we just had your place to take care of,” Fontaine said.
WATCH | Fire crews spray water around gas station near Flin Flon, Man.:
Fire crews spray water around gas station near Flin Flon, Man.
He added only those working on the fire response are allowed in the city right now, “and no one else is welcome — don’t ask.”
“The reason people are out right now is because it’s uncontrollable, it’s out of control. And you’re going to stay out — no matter who you are, no matter who you think you are — you’re going to stay out until there’s some degree of control.”
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