Star Metro - Military aids evacuations as Canada wildfires expand eastward

An airlift of Sandy Lake First Nation members started over the weekend as a 156,346-hectare blaze overwhelmed firefighting efforts and brushed up against the remote Indigenous community.

Wildfires in recent weeks have swept across densely wooded parts of the vast Prairies forcing more than 30,000 people in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba to flee their homes.

The latter two provinces have declared states of emergency.

The evacuation of Sandy Lake, an isolated community about 600 kilometers (370 miles) north of Thunder Bay with no road access, is the largest mobilization so far in Ontario.

Currently the fires are raging in the province's sparsely populated northwest corner and have so far not threatened the densely inhabited south, which includes Toronto and its suburbs -- home to some seven million people.

As of midday Monday, military Hercules aircraft had evacuated one third of the town's 3,000 residents, Sandy Lake First Nation Chief Delores Kakegamic told AFP by telephone.

It has been slow-going, she said, as these bulky but nimble aircraft were only able take off half-full with passengers because of the community's short airstrip.

- 'Rapidly deteriorated' conditions -

"We're prepared to mobilize every resource needed to keep Canadians safe," Prime Minister Mark Carney posted on X.

He announced the military deployment late Sunday after meeting with senior officials in Ottawa.

The military said in an email to AFP, "wildfire conditions in northern Ontario have rapidly deteriorated."

"Over the last 24 hours, (the Sandy Lake) wildfire has advanced from 40 kilometres to just two kilometres from the community, placing the population at immediate risk," it added.

On Saturday, 19 construction workers took refuge for several hours in a shipping container in the community as the skies turned orange and the air filled with smoke.

"A helicopter tried to go pick them up but the smoke was so bad they couldn't land," Kakegamic said.

Moments before the shipping container itself caught on fire, they made a run for it. "It was a narrow escape," Kakegamic said. "They've been traumatized, for sure."

There were 227 active wildfires across Canada as of Sunday, including about 20 in Ontario. Some 3.1 million hectares of forests have been scorched this year and hundreds of buildings destroyed in several small towns.

Images shared by wildfire agencies showed blackened and devastated landscapes left behind fast-moving walls of fire and big plumes of smoke.

The fires have downgraded air quality in parts of Canada and the United States. Smoke, which can be hazardous to health, has also reached as far away as Europe.

Climate change has increased the impact of extreme weather events in Canada, which is still recovering from the summer of 2023 when 15 million hectares of forests burned.

Most of the ongoing fires this year have been triggered by human activity -- often accidental -- such as poorly extinguished campfires or the passing of vehicles in extremely dry areas.

S.Cloutier--SMC