Evacuations remain; waiting on ‘trigger points’ for re-entry

The week of June 16 to 22, local governments were working with Alberta Wildfire to gauge the possibility of re-entry for Red Earth Creek and Loon Lake. However, as of the morning of June 23, they remained evacuated. Trout Lake, Peerless Lake, and Chipewyan Lake also remained evacuated.

Chip Lake will be evacuated for quite some time, as at least 49 per cent of the community was destroyed by wildfire, including homes, the water plant, health centre, outreach centre, church and some power lines.

The wildfires hadn’t reached the other communities, but Peerless Lake had fires on three sides.

As of the June 22 Slave Lake Wildfire Update, SWF089 was 5.5 km east of Peerless Lake. The fire between Peerless and Trout (SWF095) was 2 km from Peerless and 7 km from Trout. SWF100 was located 5 km west of Peerless.

The fires were further from Red Earth Creek and Loon Lake, which are very close to each other.

On June 22, WF092 was about 7 km southeast of Red Earth Creek and 8.5 km west of Trout Lake.

The afternoon of June 17, Loon River First Nation Chief Ivan Sawan posted a video on social media about the possibility of re-entry.

The morning of June 18 M.D. of Opportunity Reeve Marcel Auger posted a social media video on the same topic.

“The M.D. is actively pushing for re-entry into our communities,” said Auger on June 18. “The fires in this complex exhibited aggressive behaviour right up to June 14th.”

A lot of work has been done on the fires, he added, but Forestry/Alberta Wildfire is waiting for a thorough test of the fireguards between the fires and Red Earth and Loon Lake.

In the June 18 video Auger said, “Forestry emphasizes that if Red Earth Creek and Loon Lake were to reopen now all structural protection systems, including sprinklers, hoses, and pumps would need to be dismantled. Since crews would not have the option to utilize them in case of an emergency.

Consequently, the incident management team is currently recommending that evacuations orders remain in place for all communities. The M.D. of Opportunity and Alberta Wildfire are working hard to keep residents safe and to get you home as soon as possible.”

Both the M.D. and Loon Lake are working on re-entry plans.

On June 17, Sawan mentioned some trigger points which need to happen before re-entry can start. These included a lot of rain and strengthening the fireguards. Work is being done on the fireguards.

Loon River is doing preliminary work for re-entry in the community, said Sawan, which included flushing the water lines and security and the RCMP were patrolling the communities.

Sawan also mentioned the mental health and other supports Loon River and Kee Tas Kee Now Tribal Council (KTC) were providing for community members while they were evacuated in Edmonton.