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More than 25,000 residents in three provinces have been evacuated as dozens of wildfires remain active and diminish air quality in parts of Canada and the US, according to officials.
Most of the evacuated residents were from Manitoba, which declared a state of emergency last week. About 17,000 people there were evacuated by Saturday, along with 1,300 in Alberta. About 8,000 people in Saskatchewan had been relocated as leaders there said the number could climb.
Smoke was worsening air quality and reducing visibility in Canada and into some US states along the border on Sunday.
The Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency said on Sunday: “Air quality and visibility due to wildfire smoke can fluctuate over short distances and can vary considerably from hour to hour. As smoke levels increase, health risks increase.”
Scott Moe, the premier of Saskatchewan, said ongoing hot, dry weather was allowing some fires to grow and threaten communities, and resources to fight the fires and support the evacuees were stretched thin.
He said at a news conference on Saturday: “The next four to seven days are absolutely critical until we can find our way to changing weather patterns, and ultimately a soaking rain throughout the north.”
In Manitoba, more than 5,000 of those evacuated are from Flin Flon, located nearly 400 miles (645km) north-west of the provincial capital of Winnipeg. In northern Manitoba, fire knocked out power to the community of Cranberry Portage, forcing a mandatory evacuation order on Saturday for about 600 residents.
The fire raging through Flin Flon began a week ago near Creighton, Saskatchewan, and quickly jumped the boundary into Manitoba. Crews have struggled to contain it. Water bombers have been intermittently grounded due to heavy smoke and a drone incursion.
The US Department of Agriculture’s forest service deployed an air tanker to Alberta and said it would send 150 firefighters and equipment to Canada.
In some parts of the US, air quality reached “unhealthy” levels on Sunday in North Dakota and small swaths of Montana, Minnesota and South Dakota, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency’s AirNow page.
Bryan Jackson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in the US, said: “We should expect at least a couple more rounds of Canadian smoke to come through the U.S. over the next week.”
Separately, a fire in the US border state of Idaho burned at least 40 hectares (100 acres) as of Sunday, prompting road closures and some evacuations, according to the Idaho Department of Lands. The agency said in a news release that at least one structure had been burned, but did not provide additional details about the damage.
Strong gusty winds of 15 to 20 mphand steep terrain were making it difficult for firefighters battling the fire, which began on Saturday.
Evacuation centres have opened across Manitoba for those fleeing the fires, one as far south as Winkler, 12 miles from the US border. Winnipeg opened up public buildings for evacuees as it deals with hotels already crammed with other fire refugees, vacationers, businesspeople and convention-goers.
Manitoba’s Indigenous leaders said on Saturday at a news conference that hotel rooms in the cities where evacuees were arriving were full. They called on the government to instruct hotel owners to prioritise evacuees.
Grand Chief Kyra Wilson of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs said it was one of the largest evacuations in the province since the 1990s.
She said at a news conference: “It’s really sad to see our children having to sleep on floors. People are sitting, waiting in hallways, waiting outside, and right now we just need people to come together. People are tired.”
Canada’s wildfire season runs from May to September. Its worst ever wildfire season was in 2023, which choked much of North America with dangerous smoke for months.
