La Loche residents to be evacuated to Regina amidst wildfire risk: SPSA

As active wildfires approach communities northern parts of Saskatchewan, affected residents are being evacuated to Regina.

According to the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency (SPSA), the biggest fire of concern is near La Loche and Clearwater River Dene Nation. Clearwater was placed under a mandatory evacuation order on Wednesday night, followed later by a state of emergency in the village of La Loche.

On Friday morning, buses with people from La Loche left for Regina where they will be staying at the Ramada hotel downtown and at the University of Regina. As of Friday afternoon, there were 147 people from La Loche evacuated and an unknown amount who have self evacuated.

Speaking to reporters on Friday, Steve Roberts, vice president of operations for the SPSA said when they do evacuation planning with the community, they potentially have to be prepared to handle up to 3,000 evacuees.

“Local jurisdictions, Lloydminster, Battlefords, Prince Albert, cannot handle those types of numbers,” he explained. “They were also receiving local evacuees already from the Clearwater River Dene Nation. So the largest capacity we have in the province for that number is Regina.”

Roberts said plans are made to move all the groups to Regina to keep continuity between families and groups and to organize support for those when they’re evacuated.

He explained that if it was a small evacuation, they could have been able to accommodate in Prince Albert or Saskatoon, but because of the large scale, those affected will be heading to Regina.

“Even 2015, we actually had to look at areas within all across Saskatchewan as well as outside of the province if that's the case for evacuees, so we will continue to expand our options, trying to focus evacuations as close to the home community as we can.”

While plans are underway to continue to evacuate, some are concerned for Elders in the community who have to leave on a bus to Regina, where they don’t have any connections.

Roy Cheecham, band councillor for Clearwater River Dene Nation, is currently helping on the frontlines.

He said many people would have felt more comfortable in places like Saskatoon and Prince Albert, where they have family or have previously gone for medical reasons.

“It’s a lot of unknown and a lot of uneasy things,” he said. “For an Elder that has medical issues to sit on the bus with 50 other people for 11 hours is pretty hard.”

“A lot of people are curious, they want to know what's happening. They want to know where the fire is, if their house going to be okay, you know, and things of that nature, which is expected,” he added.

According to the SPSA, the whole community of La Loche will be evacuated because of the risk.

The SPSA said more information will be released during emergency preparedness week, from May 8 to 12.

For information on current wildfire statuses and fire bans across the province, click here.

- With files from CTV Prince Albert’s Stacey Hein