‘Really tough situation’: Manitoba Urban Search and Rescue describe Pukatawagan evacuation efforts

Joseph Bernacki speaks with the team that helped evacuate a northern Manitoba community just hours before the fire closed in.

Several personnel involved with evacuating the northern First Nation community of Pukatawagan as a wildfire drew closer arrived in Winnipeg on Tuesday.

“When we were flying in, the smoke was so thick at times, it was black inside the helicopter,” said Bryan Preston, a member of Manitoba Urban Search and Rescue (CAN TF-4) and team lead of the Pukatawagan evacuation.

Preston was among those who flew into Pukatawagan from Canadian Forces Base Winnipeg, saying that they helped evacuate about 2,500 people from the community.

CAN TF-4 is one of six teams across the country that specializes in heavy urban search and rescue, according to Ryan Schenk, Manitoba’s fire commissioner. The team is also involved with technical and specialty deployments.

“The operation was about getting evacuees out, so coordinating with the pilots coming in and out, just making sure that everybody was at the evacuation centre,” said Stephanie Couturier, a member of CAN TF-4.

“We had names and information from everybody … So anybody that hadn’t come to the evacuation centre, we were able to make contact with and make sure that they knew what was happening.”

Preston said that “the biggest problem would have been communication,” adding that the community faced a power outage, which prompted them to set up Starlink internet.

“But once we established all that, it went actually fairly smooth.”

Patrick Thiessen, another team member with CAN TF-4, said limited helicopters was another challenge.

“There were so many people to move,” he said. “My role was landing zone team lead. So we were landing the heavy helicopters, the Chinooks, on the soccer field there and getting evacuees out like that.”

CT-146 aircraft, CH-146 Griffon helicopters, and CH-147 Chinook helicopters were initially used to evacuate residents, according to Mike Gagne, the deputy fire commissioner for the province.

He added that there was also “fixed-wing aircraft” in addition to the “largely helicopter support.”

Preston said that once members from the Canadian Armed Forces arrived a few days later, they were able to move “a lot of people from there on.”

The provincial government said the Pukatawagan evacuation is now complete in a media release on Tuesday. The community was previously placed under an evacuation order on May 28.

Wind headed straight into community: fire chief

Eric Umpherville, fire chief for the northern community of Brochet, said that he arrived in Pukatawagan to fight the fires on May 31.

“We had a little bit of trouble with the wind,” he said. “The first night that I was there was pretty bad. It was in a bad direction, coming straight into the community.”

Umpherville said he was assigned one of the fire trucks in Pukatawagan, which he operated with his team, “(putting) out hot spots all day long.”

“There (were) quite a few hot spots that were in the centre of the community, on the outskirts of it, and towards the airport.”

Gagne said, “The situation and scene have been stabilized,” adding that fire crews are ensuring that all the hot spots have been dealt with.

He said some individuals remain in the community to provide security and maintain essential services, including ensuring that the water treatment plant continues to run.

-With files from CTV’s Joseph Bernacki