REGINA — Here is an update on the latest from the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency on the wildfire situation in the province.
Things continue to stabilize as more out-of-province supports either get ready to leave or have already left. The last of the personnel from the Canadian Armed Forces are set to leave by early Friday morning. Support from Australia has already returned home, and the province has released the two water bombers that were provided by Quebec.
As for external resources still being deployed in Saskatchewan, SPSA vice-president of operations Steve Roberts said on Wednesday they still have firefighters from Mexico, as well as firefighters or support from North Dakota, Yukon, Ontario and Parks Canada, along with their local Type 1, Type 2 and Type 3 firefighters.
As for current wildfires, as of 2:30 p.m. on Thursday, only two fires are not contained. Twelve are contained, 27 are ongoing assessment and eight are protecting values.
There have been 467 wildfires for the year to date, which is above the five-year average of 387.
There are no current evacuation incidents, after all remaining communities returned home earlier this week. All highways are currently open.
At a news conference in Prince Albert Wednesday, Roberts said this has by far been the largest fire season in Saskatchewan in terms of evacuation incidents. Roberts said the number of total evacuees is “comparable to 2015, where we had large-scale evacuations in Saskatchewan.”
According to SPSA’s webpage, there have been 33 evacuation incidents in 2025.
Reports have put the total number of those evacuated at over 26,000. On its webpage, the Canadian Red Cross confirmed that as of Aug. 7 it had registered more than 17,000 people from over 6,700 households evacuated due to the wildfires in Saskatchewan.
Roberts also spoke at the news conference about what crews had done to make sure none of the repatriated communities has to evacuate again.
“So that’s one of the criteria before they return, is having a discussion with their community to make sure that they are both secure and have the resources they need to go back,” Roberts said.
“So, as an example, one of the areas we look atis, is the access to and from that community secure to enable travel? Are their power infrastructure supportable and reliable and not impacted by wildfire? And are their services up and ready, like the hospital services, like their gas station, like their schools and their water treatment plant. So that’s done before they return home to make sure that once they return home, they’ll be able to go back into community life and not have to move, hopefully, again.”
