2 killed by Lac du Bonnet wildfire, RCMP say

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WINNIPEG — Two bodies were recovered from a wildfire-hit area northeast of Lac du Bonnet Wednesday, as officials warned the massive blazes that forced about 1,000 evacuations and destroyed properties wouldn’t be tamed easily in the coming days.

RCMP Supt. Chris Hastie said the bodies — believed to be a man and a woman — were found just off Wendigo Road when it was safe to search the area.

“It is believed they succumbed to injuries sustained in the wildfire,” Hastie said at a news conference in Lac du Bonnet. Autopsies were scheduled.

RCMP were aware two people were trapped by the fast-moving fire Tuesday, but extreme conditions prevented emergency personnel from reaching them.

“At the time, wildfire conditions were deplorable, and it did not provide any mechanism or any means for the police — or any first responder, for that matter — to access the site,” Hastie said.

“This has been an incredibly challenging time for the community, and no doubt today’s tragic news will make it even more difficult.”

The deaths were confirmed when officers visited the location at about 9:15 a.m. Wednesday, while the out-of-control blaze continued to affect other areas.

Hastie said RCMP had no additional reports of people being unaccounted for.

“This is a truly tragic event,” said Rural Municipality of Lac du Bonnet Reeve Loren Schinkel. “I want to say that we’re a very close-knit community here, and certainly the family, friends and loved ones that have been impacted by this have our profound sympathies at this news.”

Earlier, Schinkel told the Winnipeg Free Press as many as 1,000 permanent and seasonal residents were forced to flee.

He described Tuesday as a dark day for the RM.

There were significant building losses in the Wendigo Beach area, Schinkel said.

The fire’s cause was listed as human in nature by the province. The blaze rapidly spread to 4,000 hectares as it was battled by firefighters, water bombers and at least one helicopter.

Water bombers were temporarily grounded for safety reasons Wednesday because a drone was being flown in restricted airspace, drawing a rebuke from officials and a warning that drone operators will face charges if caught.

A water bomber from Ontario helped fight fires in eastern Manitoba.

While at least 24 wildfires burned across the province, the “predominant concern” was the blaze near Lac du Bonnet due to “values at risk” and the fire’s behaviour, said Kristin Hayward, assistant deputy minister of the Manitoba Wildfire Service.

Christine Stevens, assistant deputy minister of the Manitoba Emergency Management Organization, said all of Whiteshell Provincial Park will close this morning.

A separate fire was out of control nearby along the Manitoba-Ontario boundary. The uncontrolled fire grew to more than 23,000 hectares, Ontario’s government said.

All communities in the park will be evacuated, with all full-time residents, commercial operators, cottagers and campers ordered out by 1 p.m.

The province said it took the step “out of an abundance of caution” due to the extreme fire threat in the region.

Swaths of cottage country will be off limits over the long weekend. Officials urged Manitobans to avoid fire-hit areas and heed fire bans and other warnings because conditions continue to evolve and they do not want people to get in the way of first responders.

Near Lac du Bonnet, three checkpoints were set up along Provincial Road 313 to ensure only emergency vehicles access the fire zone.

Four other fires were out of control in Manitoba — near Nopiming Provincial Park, in the RM of Piney, west Libau and northwest of The Pas.

“We have hot, hot weather right now, we have dry conditions, we have had some very windy days, and we expect that to continue … into (Thursday),” Hayward said at a separate news conference in Winnipeg.

Periods of rain, expected through Friday along with cooler temperatures, may not bring desired relief to the front lines. Lightning remains a risk. Strong winds are expected again.

“There has been some mention of precipitation in the forecast, however, we are not seeing the forecasted amounts anywhere where we need them to be to extinguish the fires or make any appreciable difference in what those fires are doing,” Hayward said.

“We would need a good soaking rain. A couple of inches, a couple of days of rain to keep the humidity levels high, so we want to keep those kind of moist conditions happening. Lower temperatures, those would all help our fire situation.”

Lightning sparked the fire near Nopiming on Monday. It had spread to 100,000 hectares and was considered unsafe to fight Tuesday and firefighting focused on Lac du Bonnet where Hayward said it was safer to respond and there was a public safety risk.

Manitoba Hydro evacuated its Pointe du Bois and Slave Falls generating stations on the Winnipeg River because fires threatened to cut off road access.

The shutdown will result in a loss of about 70 megawatts of generating capacity, but it will not affect service to customers because other generating facilities can compensate, the Crown corporation said.

In the RM of Piney, a fire southeast of Woodridge grew to about 7,000 hectares. Crews were setting up fire guards and sprinklers at homes and other properties threatened by fire.

At least two structures were destroyed, the RM said in a news release.

Firefighters from B.C. arrived in Manitoba last week to aid the battle. While Manitoba always looks at what resources are available across Canada, the current focus is “responding in the moment with what we have on hand,” Hayward said.

She told reporters this isn’t a normal fire season.

“Typically, we wouldn’t be seeing a lot of this level of activity happening until later on in the summer,” she said. “We are seeing that our seasons are starting a lot earlier. We’re out on the landscape fighting forest fires probably a month earlier than historically we would be used to.”

Weather patterns and the amount of moisture headed into the season are among the factors.

“We have had a number of years where we’ve had dry conditions in the fall that don’t lead to a lot of recharge in our watersheds,” Hayward said.

Wildfire smoke prompted an air-quality warning for eastern Manitoba and some central and southern areas, including Winnipeg.

» Winnipeg Free Press