Half of Chipewyan Lake destroyed by fire, others wildfire evacuees return home

Some residents of Yellowhead County, west of Edmonton, were allowed home on Tuesday after being evacuated due to wildfire.

Some Alberta evacuees headed home Tuesday, while others learned their homes had been destroyed.

Bigstone Cree Nation, which includes the communities of Calling Lake, Chipewyan Lake, and Wabasca, said in a Tuesday update that aerial assessments showed 38 structures were destroyed, including the Bigstone Health Centre and the Chipewyan Lake water treatment plant.

Nine sheds were also lost and 10 other buildings were partially damaged.

“This means that the community of Chipewyan Lake has experienced a 49 per cent structure loss,” Chief Andy Alook said.

Fire breached the community just hours after it was evacuated due to the Red Earth fire complex, which is made up of at least nine wildfires burning out of control in the Slave Lake Forest Area.

• More than 4,000 Albertans forced to flee fires, critical infrastructure believed destroyed in northern Alberta
• Evacuation order issued for Chipewyan Lake, Alta. because of wildfire

Four of those fires collectively cover 2,463 square-kilometres. In addition to Chipewyan Lake, Peerless Lake, Trout Lake, Red Earth Creek and Loon River First Nation were also evacuated.

Bigstone Cree Nation said it is working to secure temporary housing for evacuated residents in Wabasca, and will lobby the provincial and federal governments for rebuilding assistance.

Wet weather helps some

Residents in Peers, Mercoal and Robb were allowed back into their Yellowhead County communities after being forced to flee due to a nearby out-of-control wildfire over 738 hectares in size.

“We are seeing fire behavior in those areas has settled since the precipitation has moved through late last week and early this week,” said Alberta Wildfire information officer Derrick Forsythe.

“(Crews) have done a great job in kind of knocking that fire down,” he added, “and securing the areas that needed to be secured.”

Peers resident Irene Vanderwell said it was a relief to be able to go home.

“(I’m) very appreciative to the firefighters and everyone who worked to get it out, they did an amazing job,” she added.

On Monday, residents living east of the Pembina River in the Hubert Lake Wildfire Provincial Park area were allowed to go home – though an evacuation order remained in place for people west of the river.

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While rain, colder weather and higher relative humidity had helped temper fire danger in parts of the province, Forsythe said things could heat up quickly again as things start to dry out.

“The big thing to remember is that just because we’re not hearing of all kinds of new starts and you’re not seeing pictures of big, black plumes or smoke in the sky, doesn’t mean that this fight is over by any stretch of the imagination,” Forsythe said.

“If people can be careful and just take every precaution possible to ensure we don’t have any new starts, that would be greatly appreciated.”

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As of Tuesday at 4 p.m., there were 56 active wildfires in Alberta, with 26 of those burning out of control. So far this year, there have been 504 wildfires and more than 490,000 hectares have burned.

Fire crews from New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, the Yukon, British Columbia, Quebec and the U.S. were in Alberta helping local firefighters, with more than 1,000 personnel working on fires across the province.

Forsythe said conditions remained very dry in the boreal forest from the Edson area up to the Northwest Territories. Areas that did see rain were also starting to dry out, which he said could see a resurgence of fire activity.

“If a new start grabs hold, it can spread pretty quickly,” Forsyth said, pointing to a fire that started Monday night near Highway 35 north of Manning and grew to 1,065 hectares by noon.

Fire bans remained in effect in the High Level, Fort McMurray, Peace River, Grande Prairie, Slave Lake, Lac la Biche, Whitecourt and Edson forest areas.

Other wildfires of note

In addition to the Red Earth fire complex, Forsythe said the Swan fire complex and the Sousa Creek fire had been designated priority fires by the province.

The Sousa Creek wildfire is burning out of control over 32,935 hectares between the towns of Rainbow Lake and High Level, along both sides of Highway 58. Evacuation orders were issued for Chateh, Loon Lake, Peerless Lake and Trout Lake.

The Swan fire complex is made up of two fires: the Edith Lake wildfire burning over 17,148 hectares north of Swan Hills and the Hubert Lake wildfire burning over 2,855 hectares west of Fawcett. Evacuation orders remained in place for Swan Hills in Westlock county for residents of the provincial park area of the west side of the Pembina river.

As of Monday, the province reported about 4,625 Albertans had been forced to leave home due to fires. Others remained at home on alert.

For all active evacuation orders and emergency alerts, visit the Alberta Emergency Alert website.