Wildfires Sweep Across Canada From East to West

"Unless we get one heck of a boost, it's projected to take chunks out of our town and surrounding areas. It's looking very ugly right now."

"We're begging for air support [to  help douse the fire]. It's really crucial."

Mayor of Flin Flon, Manitoba, George Fontaine

 

"It's a very serious situation that we're faced with. We do need some rainfall."

"We need that sooner rather than later, and in light of that not being in the forecast, we most certainly are putting in place every measure possible to prepare the province." 

"Resources are stretched thin because of the severity of the situation that we're facing and the intensity and the proximity of the fires."

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe 

 

"My husband was trapped on the other side of the barricade with no pills, no food, no nothing. They wouldn't let him come to me to evacuate," 

"[Reunited], we're trying to register with Saskatchewan Red Cross; I've tried numerous times."

"Worse happens, we're sleeping in the car. We'll just keep traveling from town to town to town to town till hopefully we find something."

Sandy Oosterlaken, evacuated from Denare Beach   

A wildfire in the Sherridon, Man. area is shown in a government handout photo on Tuesday, May 27, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO - Manitoba Government

 

Fierce, shifting winds threatened to propel a nearby raging wildfire into the city of Flin Flon, Manitoba where buildings, both homes and civil infrastructure would be vulnerable to the flames. The municipality 630 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg served notice to its 5,000 residents to begin emergency evacuation. A wildfire that had started over the boundary in neighbouring Saskatchewan had swiftly reached Flin Flon's northern perimeter.

 

Another thousand people are resident in cottages and homes surrounding Flin Flon. All remaining residents were directed by the city to leave before noon on Friday. Buses were driving those who don't have shelter, to Manitoba's capital city, Winnipeg. A total of 17,000 residents in Manitoba have been forced to leave their towns and homes in the last several days. 

 

Small communities and towns stretching from northern Ontario to British Columbia -- Canada's east-to-west geographic arc -- face an early fire season whipping through forests. From a blaze that started Monday near Creighton, Saskatchewan, after jumping the boundary into Manitoba and menacing Flin Flon, the wildfire has grown to 40 square kilometres, with firefighting crews struggling to contain it. As a result of heavy smoke and a drone incursion, water bombers were grounded intermittently.  

 

A wildfire that broke out across the North Saskatchewan River, in Parkland County, on May 8. (Noam Olsson photos) Photo by HO /THE CANADIAN PRESS

 

Residents of Creighton, 1,200 in number, have been ordered out of the range of the wildfire. Over 4,000 people have fled wildfires raging in Saskatchewan, under a province-wide state of emergency. Alberta, which in recent years has suffered immense wldfire damage, this year has fared comparatively better. Northwest of Edmonton, however, the 1,300 residents of Swan Hills have been ordered to evacuate, along with the 900 residents of Chateh in Alberta's northwestern corner.

 

In Chipewyan Lake, about 450 kilometres north of Edmonton, a crew of eight firefighters were temporarily trapped overnight but finally were able to drive their way out to safety. A wildfire in British Columbia that prompted an evacuation order Thursday, quadrupled in size overnight while firefighters prepared for "intensifying conditions" in the parched northeast of the province where the concentration of most fire activity is located. 

 

The blaze "displaying aggressive fire behaviour" in the Peace River Regional District near the community of Kelly Lake was about 46 square kilometres in size Friday, substantially larger from the 11 square kilometres it registered the day before, according to the British Columbia Wildfire Service.   

 

Military aircraft and helicopters are being used to evacuate residents in Manitoba from fast-moving wildfires    EPA

 

British Columbia has about 60 wildfires ongoing at the present time, 34 of which are classified as burning out of control. According to the B.C. Wildfire Service, 18 percent of the active fires were human caused, 77 percent started by lightning taking advantage of the drought situation and tinder-dry forests, and five percent of unknown causes.  

"It's been another challenging day here in Manitoba."

"[Firefighters were using] water bombers flying overhead [and] helicopters dropping buckets of water."

"But at the same time, all the smoke in the air is making the evacuation effort that much more difficult."

"Our provinces here in Canada are immense. By the time somebody makes it to Winnipeg, some of them have been on the road overnight. They've had to be on a flight for a few hours and then on a bus for several hours after that."

Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew

A Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) patrol vehicle is parked as a water bomber flies over the plume of smoke from a wildfire near The Pas, Manitoba, May 27, 2025. Manitoba RCMP/Handout via REUTERS

Enforcing the Pro-Palestinian Narrative by Terror Tactics

"The PD [professional development] is very much needed. That's the number one concern."

"If it's not safe ... to provide PD on antisemitism, what does that communicate about the safety for Jewish educators, for Jewish students and their allies and quite frankly, for all educators and students." 

Tamara Gottlieb, co-founder, Jewish Educators and Families Association (FEFA)

"Our decision was discouraging to members of the Jewish community, and to our Jewish members."

"The point has been made that it would have been helpful for us to consult with the community prior to making the decision to cancel, and we appreciate this valuable feedback."

"As we said to our members in a recent email, this is difficult work, and we won't always get it right. But we are committed to it, and to ongoing dialogue in our efforts to promote understanding and community within our organization."

Nathan Martindale, president, Manitoba Teachers' Society union

Anti-Israel protesters in Winnipeg. Photo by Chris Procaylo /winnipeg sun

Some Manitoba teachers signed up for a professional development course; the subject: "Bearing witness to October 7th", along with fighting antisemitism in the classroom, a talk meant to be delivered by Kelly Hiebert, a history teacher at Westwood Collegiate in Winnipeg, tasked by the provincial government to develop a mandatory Holocaust curriculum for Manitoba students. When the event was cancelled, Jewish teachers felt alarmed by the decision of the Manitoba Teachers' union.

In their concern over the cancellation, the teachers for whom the event was both personal and important, contacted the Jewish Educators and Families Association as well as the provincial government, to intervene on their behalf with the union. "This approved and well thought PD session is needed now more than ever. Cancelling it with so little notice before it was to take place leaves many educators without the resources they need", read a letter signed by JEFA along with a few other organizations.

The Manitoba Education and Early Childhood Learning ministry responded to the letter, stating that the event had been cancelled as a result of unspecified threats. "The decision to cancel the session was made out of an abundance of caution for the safety of the presenters due to online comments related to this event and recent escalations in antisemitic incidents." To which the Manitoba Teachers' Society added that there were "unsettling comments" on social media related to the event.

"Out of an abundance of caution for the safety of the presenters and those in attendance, MTS elected to cancel", explained the  union. This is Canada, where factions hostile to the existence of Israel, extending their alienation to Canadian Jews, their institutions, including their support of Zionism, act out in socially exclusionary ways to harass, threaten and isolate Jews in a country that celebrates its pride in multiculturalism.

 

 One group of antisemites essentially closing down the right of free speech, and threatening violence should an initiative to counter antisemitism dare to proceed.

Statistics Canada data show that Jews were the target throughout 2023 of 70 percent of all religiously motivated hate crimes, a situation that in and of itself, is ample reason of the necessity that such professional development courses for teachers proceed, in this climate of exclusion, isolation and threats aimed directly at the Canadian Jewish population. A climate fostered and derived from a conflict of long duration and historical antecedents in the Middle East.

Pro-Palestinian protesters gather in front of the Manitoba Legislative Building   CTV News

"[There had been a 'sharp rise' in antisemitism in the province."

"Threats to places of worship, community centres, and campuses have left many Jewish Manitobans feeling unsafe expressing their identity."

"This past year has been challenging for many, but we stand together, united in rejecting all forms of hate and ensuring that everyone can live freely and without fear."

Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew

Fugitives

"It really is [the end of the road]. The road ends here in Manitoba. This is the dead-end corner of the world. I see it as the perfect place to get caught."
"To leave, they [the fugitives] would have to backtrack along the road or walk through the forest. The only other routes of travel would be the Nelson River or the train tracks."
"Its doable. People lived here a hundred years ago, so you can do it. People have gone out in the forest and done fine, but it takes a certain kind of person to stick that out. You kind of gotta want to be there. Or need to be there."
"There's a lot of rivers they'd need to cross, a lot of swampy ground. It's wet, vegetative ground. Soft and hard walking. Depending on where you are, you could sink up to your waist."
"Right now, there's berries growing everywhere. I can't walk in my front yard without making jam. It's a bumper year on rabbits. I've never seen so many rabbits."
"Anything that floats will get out there [to Hudson Bay via the Nelson River] but the truth is, if they made it to the bay they would be facing a whole different element."
"They'd be dealing with tide-waters, very large waves and polar bears."
Jesse Taylor, 32, Gillam town employee, wilderness outdoorsman

RCMP search the area near Gillam, Man., for homicide suspects Bryer Schmegelsky and Kam McLeod on Friday. (RCMP/The Canadian Press )

So this is what 19-year-old Kam McLeod and 18-year-old Bryer Schmelgelsky may be coping with in their determination to evade capture as suspects in three grisly murders. Held to be responsible for the shooting deaths of Australian Lucas Fowler, 23, and his 24-year-old American girlfriend, Chynna Deese whose bodies were discovered close by their van as they parked close by the Alaska Highway not far from Liard Hot Springs in British Columbia.

Photos of Bryer Schmegelsky submitted to CBC News by an online gamer at Steam, a video game distribution platform, where the two met. (Submitted)

The two have been charged with second-degree murder in the death of University of British Columbia botany lecturer Leonard Dyck, 64, whose body was found on a turnout south of Dease Lake, B.C., on Highway 37, some 470 kilometres west of the first homicide scene. Their burned-out pickup stood about two kilometres from Mr. Dyck's lifeless body. They were then tracked to northern Saskatchewan and following that to northern Manitoba, a burned-out Toyota they had stolen attesting to their arrival there.

"There have been no confirmed sightings outside of the Gillam area, however we remain open to the possibility."
"Our plea today is that if anyone in and around those communities [of Gillam of and Fox Lake Cree Nation] may have inadvertently helped them get out of the community ... to just please come forward."
RCMP Cpl.Julie Courchaine

Officers comb the wilderness near Gillam, Man., on Thursday. (Gilbert Rowan/CBC)

The two were last reported having been seen in Gillam on the 22nd. Since then police have searched with dogs, drones, helicopters and patrols, hoping to unearth their presence. The military has been brought in for sighting by plane. Asking for help from the public in the hope that some clue might give investigators an idea where they might possibly look. Exiting Gillam would mean leaving the very same way they arrived. But they destroyed the stolen vehicle they arrived with. And there have been no local reports of vehicle theft since then.

At the end of the road there is the vast northern forest. With plentiful food and liquid available in its natural state, in an environment potentially hazardous to the well-being, much less survival of the uninitiated to outdoor survival. The town of Gillam has 1,200 residents, the Fox Lake reserve another 200. Everyone is familiar with everyone else; a strange face is noticed immediately, and noted. There have been no reports of the two fugitives appearing in public for the past week.

Without some kind of human intervention that might give the pair direction, support, advice and practical help of some kind, the mystery is where they might be in the forest with its boggy floor, the presence of bears, and blood-sucking bugs prevalent at this time of year, to drive animals and humans to distraction. If they are there, in the forest, they are not enjoying themselves.

"Everybody in this town knows everybody else and when somebody new comes into town, a new vehicle or a new face, people recognize that right away."
"As unnerving as this whole situation is, in my opinion, it's kind of the best scenario. Everybody knows everybody and there is only one road in and one road out. They'll find them, it's just a matter of time", assures Jesse Taylor, the informative outdoorsman.

In the interim, the hope must be that there be no further encounters with this deadly pair -- that anyone else might lose their lives. Two young men led by demons of destructive violence that only they know of, one entranced by the allure of violent fascism augmenting an already-disturbed psychotic personality, the other an unnervingly willing accomplice whose trail of bloodshed has left a nation stunned. Normal kids, their parents assure the public.