BEAUVAL - The Northern Village of Beauval is surrounded by the Muskeg Fire and other fires but Mayor Rick Laliberte said the community feels safe in spite of the challenging situation.
Laliberte said the Muskeg Fire has made its way all around the community, but it’s the area east of the community that’s the biggest concern.
“It's slowly been creeping towards us from what originally was the Dore Fire and then it moved right to La Plonge,” Laliberte explained. “That whole fire front is coming towards Beauval and the La Plonge reserve at English River.”
He said the Trail Fire that is affecting Jans Bay, Cole Bay and Canoe Lake is also a concern.
"They've got it well contained from burning into the communities, but it's reached down to Keeley Lake to the to the south of us,” Laliberte said. “We've been monitoring it because it could burn to the 155, which is our only access out of here.”
He said several fires have merged to create one big fire and when the winds reach 50 kilometers an hour there are flare ups.
"We don't know where these flare ups are going to happen,” he said. “It's been creeping up towards Patuanak as well, the same fire. It’s also creeping up to Pinehouse.
"With Beauval, we're feeling relatively safe because the fire has completely surrounded us on the west side. We have the biggest fire break right now. It won't come back on itself, so we're feeling a little more confident than we were a week ago.”
It’s been nearly a month since Beauval was evacuated because of the wildfire threat, but Laliberte said community members might be able to return home soon. He said that he hopes to declare an end to the evacuation for July 30, depending on Monday’s SPSA recommendations, when the village council will make a decision.
Laliberrte said that the evacuees of the community are doing well.
"The community itself is okay. Our evacuees are in Saskatoon and Prince Albert and they've had a number of activities, like a Riders game the other night. They're in relatively good spirits, but very anxious to come home.
“It's been 25 days since they're gone. This fire flared up 29 days ago, just before Canada Day.”
On July 3, more than 700 people were officially evacuated. On July 13, the fire came to the very edge of the village. Crews were able to prevent the flames from reaching any homes or essential infrastructure inside the village.
Laliberte said they will announce the decision on Monday to extend or keep the evacuation in place. A decision had not been announced as of press time.
Laliberte said they are concerned about the medical priority residents and how much service the community can provide.
"It will depend on the SPSA report and how much of this fire they've knocked down within our immediate region,” he said.
Beauval receives an updated report from the SPSA at 3 p.m. each day Laliberte has been making announcements at 4 p.m. each day on local radio.
He said conditions were like he has never seen before for drought.
“It's just drought conditions over here,” he said. “Our Muskegs are dry, our creeks are dry, our lakes are dry, Beaver River is down low. With this drought that we're having, that's what's causing these fires to join.”
He added that what is now the Muskeg Fire was about 12 smaller fires with different names.
“I have never seen these fires join before. We used to deal with one fire,” he said.
"I've never seen that phenomenon before and it's same thing happened in Flin Flon.”
Laliberte said that community response is one way to help fight the fires before they are out of control.
"It's just a wild phenomenon so for us to adapt, I think we have to have initial response—early response—to these fires,” he said. “As soon as lightning strikes we should be monitoring them. If there's campfires or a human losing track of their fire and they can't manage it, well, the community has to go put out that fire immediately because we can't wait for an assessment and SPSA to come and fight fires.” The Northern Village of Beauval has set up their own Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) and coordinator.
"SPSA is then charged with the responsibility of provincial action and resources. But we're finding that the local communities are not given the resources. We're not given planning resources or preparation resources for firefighting,” Laliberte said.
Another change he would like to see is community wildfire fighting capabilities.
He said that the jurisdiction and authority is different in the north with people respecting the traditional zones in Canoe Lake and Beauval as an example.
“That's why we're happy to go help a cabin owner or a ranch owner that's outside the village boundaries because they're our community. They're our family members,” he said.
“That's the reality of the north, the jurisdiction and authority is totally different on crown land than the way the south operates, and we're not given the resources. We don't have a tax base up here to afford these resources,” Laliberte said.
He said that a new plan should be developed for emergency response of any type.
"We don't have the capabilities to deal with those potentially drastic situations, so preparedness is going to be top of mind with northern leaders,” he said.
Laliberte said the federal government could also be given responsibility because of reserves, military communities that are under federal jurisdiction in the north.
"I think they should be afforded a big slice of the responsibility to give us the resources for this, because the lack of a tax base we can’t buy a fire engine, we can buy a pump that will serve our community, so we're revisiting that whole process of how we respond ourselves from the community level,” he said.
Laliberte thanked all of the international firefighters who helped with the response including the Australian crew that are now on off days since they have been on for 14 days straight.
“We also had a Quebec crew that was here during the fire fight in Beauval to save our community, so we want to say thank you to the Quebec fire crew,” Laliberte said.
"We also have a Mexican crew that came in and they're out there on the fire lines today (Sunday) at our camp here in Beauval,” he added.
He also thanked an Ontario crew that takes management responsibilities from the SPSA.
"They've taken the Saskatchewan workers for a break because they've been going hard since May, but we have an Ontario fire team here that's taking command of these fires. They call it the complex fires now because there's so many fires on the West side, but they're stationed here in Beauval. We just want to say thank you to our international crews,” Laliberte said.
