By Glenn Hicks

P.A. hotels fill with wildfire evacuees

Aug 31, 2017 | 12:59 PM

Prince Albert hotels have quickly filled to capacity with evacuees from the wildfires burning near Pelican Narrows and Sandy Bay.

Emergency Social Services (ESS) said 640 of the near 1,600 total evacuees had now registered in P.A. Over 800 are in Saskatoon.

A large contingent came to P.A. by bus and private vehicle, under escort, late Wednesday night. Of the 640, over 500 are staying in hotels and another 100 are with friends and family.

Deanna Valentine with ESS said her agency can no longer accommodate any more evacuees in P.A.

“At this point we are considering P.A. at capacity,” she said in a conference call Thursday. “If there are further residents coming out of their homes we would consider accommodating them in Saskatoon.”

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She said she was “fairly confident” there would be sufficient space in Saskatoon, but just in case they were considering other communities. She said North Battleford was a possibility but nothing had been confirmed.

Mandatory evacuation order not being enforced

Meanwhile the province’s Emergency Management Commissioner Duane McKay has reiterated no one is being forced to leave Pelican Narrows, despite the mandatory evacuation order.

Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation issued the order Tuesday, but McKay said earlier this week, “’mandatory’ is a difficult word because ultimately the choice for evacuations is left to the individual.”

Officials figure more than 1,000 people remain in the community.

But McKay said Thursday while officials were not enforcing the evacuation, they were stopping people from returning home. He added if people left and decided to come back, they would be stopped at road blocks.

“This is our way to ensure we’re not increasing our risk…It’s our way of managing the evacuations,” he said.

McKay added as of Thursday there were five buses waiting to take any further residents out but “there was little interest.”

Wildfire crews are battling all three of the uncontrolled blazes in the area and have been working on establishing a guard on the southern flank of the fire burning closest to Pelican Narrows. That’s about three kilometers north of the community.

Smoke remains the main risk and not direct fire.

Glenn.Hicks@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @princealbertnow