Crews continue to battle a wildfire threatening two northern Saskatchewan communities, which have been evacuated to protect local residents from disaster.
Saskatchewan's commissioner of fire safety and emergency management Duane McKay said that "the people from Hatchet Lake and Wallaston Lake have been evacuated out of that particular part of the forest," during an interview on CTV News Channel Thursday morning.
The pair of northern Saskatchewan communities, located about 840 kilometres north of Saskatoon, have been in a state of emergency since Tuesday, when officials first warned that nearby wildfires were headed their way.
The blaze has spread across 40 square kilometres, according to environment officials, much larger than the five square kilometres it had covered on Wednesday morning.
"We had consistent 20 kilometre per hour winds, very high temperatures and low humidities. We had what we would consider rank five, which is the highest severity of fire behaviour all day" on Wednesday, said the province's executive director of wildfire management, Steve Roberts.
The last residents were flown out of the two communities before midnight Wednesday. They first travelled north via small planes and helicopters, and were then flown to Saskatoon hours later onboard Hercules aircraft.
The Canadian Forces confirmed in a statement issued Thursday that it had completed "a 24-hour operation" to fly the remaining evacuees out of the two fire-threatened communities.
Only emergency workers like Ed Benoaniem, the acting chief of Hatchet Lake, were left behind.
"The worst has pretty much passed us now, I think," he told The Canadian Press. "The fire was kind of around us on the reserve and it continued to the north. It's still blazing in the north, but right now the smoke is almost clear."
The evacuees included 16-year-old Delana Hansen, who said she's exhausted from the ordeal.
"I was kind of scared… I didn't know exactly where everybody was going to be," she said. "It was really tiring being awake that long. Plus I couldn't sleep because my chest was hurting too. The smoke was just really too strong."
The evacuation operation proceeded slowly because both the wintertime ice road and summertime barge that usually provide a route out of the communities are inaccessible.
As the commissioner for emergency and protective services with the Prince Albert Grand Council explained early Thursday, that left the community of 1,300 people with just one way out.
"The community is surrounded by water and forest," Richard Kent said in a telephone interview from Prince Albert on Thursday morning, noting that ice left on the lake is not safe to drive on.
"So that takes out the options of bringing them out either by the ice road or by barge. That only leaves air."
More than 800 people will sleep in a shelter in Saskatoon, while another 620 evacuees are being housed in a local soccer stadium.
Angus Tsannie, an elder from Wallaston Lake, hopes that everyone in those facilities will get along.
"We got away from the fire," he said. "A lot of people got evacuated away from the smoke."
However, he added: "I don't know when we will be leaving but it will be better when we do, when everything is okay."
While the evacuation effort was slow and steady, Kent is confident the firefighting efforts will eventually mark their own success.
"The Wildfire Branch is doing an excellent job of diverting the fire and keeping it away from the community," he said, praising his province's experience dealing with such blazes.
"They've been doing this for many, many years and they definitely know their business," he said. "So we're real grateful they've put all their efforts into ensuring the community is safe."
Although no buildings have burned in the fire, McKay told The Canadian Press that the threat to the community is still "significant."
With a report from CTV Saskatoon's Mark Rogstad and files from The Canadian Press
