Manitoba prepared to house thousands more wildfire evacuees if needed, official says

While recent rain has helped crews as they battle wildfires across Manitoba, provincial officials still say they're prepared to house thousands more evacuees if needed, as 122 blazes now actively burn across the province.

A total of roughly 12,000 people are currently out of their homes due to wildfire evacuations in Manitoba, with more than half staying in hotels across the province, and over 1,000 each staying in hotels in Ontario and congregate shelters in Winnipeg, Christine Stevens, assistant deputy minister of the Manitoba Emergency Management Organization, said at a news conference Monday.

Though no new evacuations have been ordered in the past 24 hours, Stevens said the province has more than 5,000 more beds ready to go if needed, with sites on standby in Winnipeg and Portage la Prairie.

"The decision to evacuate is not made lightly. It is made based on real-time assessments of risk, road access, smoke and the medical needs of communities," Stevens said, with final decisions on evacuations made by local leadership.

The update comes days after officials in Thompson warned the northern city's roughly 13,000 residents late last week to prepare for a possible evacuation as an out-of-control fire burns just north of the community.

But with some "pretty decent weather" helping firefighting efforts there recently, officials now feel "quite confident" in the protections in place between the blaze and the city, Kristin Hayward, assistant deputy minister for the Conservation Officer Service and Manitoba Wildfire Service, said at Monday's news conference. 

"Of course, there's always an unknown," Hayward said. "The weather can create different situations, but based on what we've done to date, we're feeling pretty good about where we're at with Thompson."

Stevens said though plans are in place if Thompson has to evacuate, for now, residents are "just sort of in a holding pattern as we monitor."

"If there is a need for the community to evacuate, if the risk presents itself in such a way that a proactive or early evacuation is needed, then that decision will be made, but we're not in that circumstance right now," she said.

As of Monday, 12,736 square kilometres have burned across Manitoba this fire season — 2.3 per cent of the province's land area, the government said.

Firefighters have made progress on a number of fires burning near communities and have been helped by the weather in parts of northern Manitoba, including areas near Leaf Rapids and Thompson, Hayward said.

Crews have also made some inroads on fires near the communities of Split Lake, Garden Hill and Snow Lake and continue to battle fires around Lynn Lake and Cross Lake and a new one near York Landing, she said.

An out-of-control blaze in the area of Nopiming Provincial Park in eastern Manitoba remains the primary concern in that region. It is burning north into Atikaki Provincial Park and into Ontario, Hayward said.

A total of 297 wildfires have been reported in Manitoba so far this year, Hayward said, above the 20-year average of 217 as of Monday.