Chiefs want the tools to fight fires as thousands of people evacuated
Miles Morrisseau
ICT
The wildfire season has started early in Canada and has already reached historic levels of devastation. And once again Indigenous peoples are in the line of fire.
Nearly 5 million acres have already burned or are burning, and tens of thousands of people have been evacuated across Canada primarily in the Prairie provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Ontario. Fires are also beginning to spread in parts of Ontario, British Columbia and the Northwest Territory, and some evacuations have begun in these provinces.
The early season has hit Manitoba First Nations particularly hard, with the First Nations making up the majority of the more than 20,000 people evacuated in that province.
The Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs has been working closely with members to help coordinate the crisis and advocate for the support needed for First Nations to deal with these escalating climate emergencies.
“It really puts into perspective the infrastructure needs for First Nations communities and that is something we are going to be having a conversation about,” Grand Chief Kyra Wilson told ICT. “When we look at another First Nations community that was needing to be evacuated, the Hercules plane that could have evacuated a high number of individuals all at once could not land in the community because the infrastructure in place, the airstrip could not accommodate the Hercules plane.”
The Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs held a press conference on June 2 with chiefs from the evacuated communities, and Chief Goldie Bear of Mathias Colomb Cree Nation said his community doesn’t have the minimum tools to stop fires from spreading or starting up again.
“We have fire hotspots coming out from some places two or three days later, but we’ve got no water. But if we had water to drown these little hot spots out we would catch up to the fire,” said the chief, whose community doesn’t have fire hoses, axes or watering packs.
“Years ago, we had these five-gallon backpacks – they were aluminum,” the chief said. “We carried them and we squirted them and we’d fill up again. We don’t even have those…We have nothing but hoses for our garden, rakes for the lawn. Nothing to fight fire, nothing. We’re poor, vulnerable. We have to run all the time.”
States of emergency
The province declared a state of emergency on May 28 as wildfires began to spread across Manitoba.
The Mathias Colomb Cree Nation, also known as Pukatawagon, began emergency evacuations on May 30 with the majority of people moving first to the Opaskwayak Cree Nation 130 miles to the south before being further evacuated to Winnipeg and even to Niagara Falls, Ontario, when accommodations in Manitoba became overloaded.
“We can safely say for sure that we’ve had a little over 1,500 band members that came through, but we’re still inputting just based on the sheer volume,” reported Diane Kelly, Opaskwayak Cree who served as incident commander. “So we’re probably looking closer to 2,000 through our arena at the Gordon Lathlin Memorial Center.”
Pimicikamak Cree Nation, also known as Cross Lake, is one of the largest Indigenous communities in the north with an on-reserve population of nearly 7,000. It is 350 miles from Winnipeg as the crow flies and nearly 500 miles by road. In an operation that took more than a week, thousands of community members had to be evacuated by air and boat when the one road out of town was cut off by fire.
Chief David Monias also questioned the commitment by governments to protect First Nations.
“Seems to be what they want us to do, all of them, to make us run — they don’t even try to save our infrastructure on the houses. For us in Cross Lake, we have one fire truck. That’s it for 10,000 people,” Monias said.
“That’s ridiculous,” Monias continued. “They are more worried about money than they are worried about saving lives or saving our property and everything we have. And we worked so hard to build our community, and here we are. We’re fighting, even still, to get water bombers.”
Other Manitoba First Nations under evacuation order are Mathias Colomb, Marcel Colomb, Chemawawin and Tataskweyak. The First Nations of Misipawistik, Opaskwayak, Norway House and York Factory have air quality concerns, and elders and those with respiratory issues have been encouraged to leave.
Meanwhile, the Manitoba Wildfire Service continued to respond to 25 active wildfires across the province as of Wednesday, June 11, with a total of 116 wildfires to date – above the average for this date of 105.
Evacuations continue
In addition to First Nations, other communities that have been evacuated include the northern mining town of Flin Flon, which remains under evacuation order. The town has a population of nearly 5,000 with more than 1,000 residents identifying as First Nations or Métis. The town of Lynn Lake also remains under evacuation order; the majority of the town of 500 residents are from the Marcel Colomb Cree Nation.
According to National Resources Canada the wildfire season of 2025 is unprecedented. So far this year, 5.5 million acres have burned or are burning compared to the average over the past 10 years of 1.5 million acres.
Canada is on a national preparedness level 5, indicating that there is full commitment of national resources, and the demand for interagency resources through the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Center is extreme.
Three fires across the country have been deemed priorities.
Bird River Fire is located near Bissett and Bird River and is approximately half a million acres in size. It is out of control as of Wednesday, and has resulted in the evacuation of the community of Bissett and Nopiming Provincial Park.
The Lower Fishing Lake Fire in Saskatchewan was reported on May 7 and is currently over 1 million acres and still not contained. It has resulted in evacuations from the Lower Fishing Lake, Piprell Lake, East Trout Lake, Little Bear Lake, and Whiteswan/Whelan Bay areas.
The West of La Ronge Fire in Saskatchewan is currently over 200,000 acres and not contained. It is less than 20 km from several communities and has resulted in evacuations from Hall Lake, Nemeiben Lake, Sucker River, Wadin Bay, Sikachu, Clam Crossing, La Ronge, Air Ronge, Lac La Ronge, Eagle Point, Potato Lake, Lamp Lake, and Rabbit Creek.
With First Nations literally in the line of fire and their leadership and emergency teams working to save communities as the fires rage, Grand Chief Wilson wants her peoples and their leaders to be heard.
“All too often what we see is that First Nations leadership are needing to put forward requests like, we need help on this. We’re dealing with this emergency, and we’re having to wait for responses from different levels of government when it shouldn’t be like that,” Wilson said.
“When I think about one of our chiefs, you know, our leaders, to me, they’re at the same level as a premier and a prime minister,” Wilson said. “They are our leaders, and they have been elected to protect the nation and to keep families safe.”