Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew said Monday hotels in Winnipeg are opening up to thousands of evacuees who have fled their homes due to raging wildfires.
Speaking ahead of the premiers’ conference in Saskatoon, Kinew said some 1,000 hotel rooms are being made available for evacuees in the province’s capital city.
“Nobody wants to sleep on a cot for more than a day or two, even in an emergency,” Kinew said.
“We’re connecting folks who need those enhanced accessibility supports first and then broadening it out to everybody else who needs help, too.”
More than 17,000 people have been displaced since last week, including all 5,000 residents of Flin Flon. Emergency centres were set up as available hotel rooms in cities have been scarce.
Some residents from Pimicikamak Cree Nation, east of Flin Flon, were taken to a hotel in Niagara Falls, Ont., beginning Sunday. Around 600 members were expected Monday to make their way to Ontario.
“This has been a harrowing experience for many of our people, but at the end of the day, it’s all about saving lives. It’s all about keeping people safe,” said Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak Grand Chief Garrison Settee.
Efforts to get First Nations evacuees out of Manitoba are being spearheaded by Xpera, a firm offering various security and evacuation support services. Settee said the company is handling buses, flights and hotel accommodations.
Robert Garland from Xpera said about 226 evacuees had arrived and planes carrying more were to land late Monday. He said the company could find accommodations for 3,000, but that number could change depending on the fire situation.
“The hotel groups down here are definitely looking forward to pitching in and showing our friends from Manitoba the hospitality … that Niagara has to offer,” he said.
Higher courts in Manitoba and Saskatchewan were to meet this week in Winnipeg for a conference, but it was cancelled to make hotel spaces available to evacuees.
Get daily National news
The fire threatening Flin Flon began a week ago across the boundary in Saskatchewan and has now grown to 400 square kilometres. Crews have said the fire has been contained to outside the community’s perimeter highway.
Residents were ordered out last Wednesday in an evacuation that Flin Flon local Derek Kemp called “immediate and hectic.”
A longtime musician, Kemp rounded up his guitars, amplifiers and a hard drive with 20 years’ worth of music he couldn’t leave behind. He watched the fire grow in the days leading up to the evacuation.
“I just remember seeing a little bit of black smoke,” he said in an interview. “And then the next day, when I woke up, it was just giant plumes of smoke.”
Now staying with family in Brandon, Man., Kemp said he might take some odd jobs to make some money and stay busy.
On Sunday, he and about a hundred others from Flin Flon gathered at a Winnipeg park to spend time together.
“(We) were all kind of just hanging out there,” Kemp said. “At one point, they sang a song together.”
Manitoba RCMP confirmed evacuation efforts have been completed in Flin Flon and surrounding areas, Lynn Lake and Pimicikamak, Mathias Colomb and Tataskweyak Cree Nations.
Manitoba reported 25 active wildfires Sunday. Officials said rain on Monday, while welcome, was “not enough to contribute towards wildfire suppression efforts.”
Kinew said the support his province has received from other jurisdictions is appreciated, but noted Canada needs to scale up its firefighting capabilities.
“As a nation, we’re going to have to contend with future fire seasons being more and more like this,” he said. “We could use every water bomber we can get our hands on.”
In Saskatchewan and Alberta, thousands more people have been affected by wildfires ignited by hot, dry weather.
Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe said all of Canada has come together to help out the Prairie provinces.
“Many others around this table are consistently reaching out to the three of us to offer resources,” he said before the premiers’ meeting. “And for that, we’re very grateful.”
As of Monday, 18 fires were burning in Saskatchewan, with seven of them not contained. Evacuation orders were issued for northern areas, including Pelican Narrows, East Trout Lake and Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation.
More than 8,000 Saskatchewan residents are out of their homes due to fires.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said her province has seen nearly 5,000 people evacuated. There were 26 out-of-control fires in Alberta.
The province has experienced shifting winds, so some fire crews sent elsewhere have been called home, Smith said.
“With so many communities facing evacuation … we’ve got to be able to respond in a way that is going to be rapid.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 2, 2025.
— With files from Lisa Johnson, Aaron Sousa and Jack Farrell in Edmonton, and Sharif Hassan in Toronto, The Canadian Press
Comments