Timmins has put down the welcome mat again for people fleeing a Northwestern Ontario forest fire.
This time, it’s burning about 12 kilometres southwest of Keewaywin, near Red Lake.
Most of the 400 people from there are headed here,
Local emergency management coordinator Tom Laughren says two-hundred of the most vulnerable were sent to Sioux Lookout earlier in the week.
“So the remainder of those roughly between (200 and 250) will be coming to Timmins,” Laughren notes.
As many as five flights should have all of those people in Timmins by Thursday night.
To find out how big the Keewaywin fire is, we turned to MNRF forest fire information officer Isabelle Chenard.
“The fire is currently 54,643 hectares in size,” she reports.
That’s massive. One hectare equals a football field.
Chenard continues: “An incident management team is currently assessing the sprinkler requirements in the area to help protect values as a precautionary measure and there is also aerial ignition opportunities being explored as well for fire suppression purposes.”
The current forest fire hazard is high to extreme across most of Ontario.
Laughren says the same group that accommodated flood evacuees from Kashechewan and fire evacuees from Pikangikum has been reassembled.
“We’ve got the Red Cross in to do the registering, help and support,” he outlines. “We have the local services that we’ve used in the past, geared up, ready to go. Same format, the difference will be in numbers.”
About 900 people came from Kashechewan and 200 from Pikangikum.
