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Premier Meets With Community Leaders, Crews Battling Northern Wildfires

Premier Greg Selinger and Infrastructure and Transportation Minister Steve Ashton, minister responsible for emergency measures, are meeting community leaders and fire-attack crews in Ilford and York Landing as part of a tour of northern Manitoba wild fires this afternoon.

“These fires have put nearly 500 Manitobans out of their homes and left hundreds more on alert.  We have seen they can move quickly and pose a huge threat to communities in their path,” said Selinger.  “I am glad our firefighters have moved quickly to protect at-risk people and property, and our modernized water-bomber fleet is giving them the support they need to battle these fires.”

More than 22 fire-attack crew members, 90 emergency firefighters, four water bombers and five helicopters are fighting northern fires.

Currently, the fire near Ilford covers more than 45,000 hectares.  Initial-attack crews and emergency firefighter crews are fighting the fire.  Crews have cut a series of fire lines and installed emergency sprinklers that have prevented significant property damage.  Southwest winds have reduced the fire threat to York Landing, which is also protected by fire lines and emergency sprinklers.  Crews there continue to monitor the situation.

A fire near Keeyask is burning more than 18,000 ha.  Crews are working to prevent any westward movement toward Split Lake, where residents are on standby for potential evacuation.

Ashton noted the recently announced fourth new Bombardier CL-415 turboprop water bomber has supported the work being done to battle the blazes.

“These are the world’s newest and best water bombers.  They can carry more water and do almost twice as many drops per hour as the last generation of planes,” said Ashton.  “Since 1999, we’ve also added 15 new initial-attack crew members for a total of 175 specially trained firefighters who keep our communities safe.”

So far this year there have been 160 wildfires in Manitoba, burning 118,000 ha.  Thirty-nine were started by lightning.  On average there are more than 200 fires this time of year.  Last year there were 481 fires that burned a total of 222,000 ha.