More than 25,000 residents in three Canadian provinces have been evacuated as dozens of wildfires remained active Sunday and diminished air quality in parts of the country, as well as 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, the AP reports. About 8,000 people in Saskatchewan had been relocated as officials there warned the number could climb. Military planes and helicopters have been used to evacuate residents in some remote areas, per the BBC.
Smoke was worsening air quality and reducing visibility in Canada and into some states along the US border. "Air quality and visibility due to wildfire smoke can fluctuate over short distances and can vary considerably from hour to hour," Saskatchewan's Public Safety Agency warned Sunday. "As smoke levels increase, health risks increase." Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe said that the hot, dry weather is allowing some fires to grow and threaten communities, and that resources to fight the fires and support the evacuees are stretched thin. "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," Moe said Saturday.
In Manitoba, more than 5,000 of those evacuated are from Flin Flon, located nearly 400 miles northwest of the provincial capital of Winnipeg. The fire menacing 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 by 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 Sunday in North Dakota and small swaths of Montana, Minnesota, and South Dakota, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency's AirNow page.
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