Many Manitoba communities are trying to learn from 2025’s devastating wildfire season to better protect themselves.
For the town and RM of Lac du Bonnet, it couldn’t be more top of mind following last year’s wildfire season that killed two people and destroyed dozens of homes and cottages.
“You drive through the subdivision, (and) I can still vividly recall what it was like to drive through there on the morning of the 14th of May,” Lac du Bonnet municipal emergency measures coordinator John Fleming told Global News.
“It was like being hit in the chest with a sledgehammer. A community that was gone.”
It’s prompted the town and the RM to make take action on wildfire prevention. Fleming says the community has contracted a company to conduct a comprehensive wildfire risk assessment of the area, which will help that establish a wildfire protection plan.
The RM is also conducting a survey and educating residents on the FireSmart program, hoping home and cottage owners will take steps to better fireproof and protect their properties.
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“One of my goals is to never have to do that drive into a subdivision that we work in and find out that it’s gone, that people that we cared about are gone,” Fleming said.
“We went through a terrible year, and we must do everything in our power to prevent it.”
A recently-released report by the Wilderness Committee also looks to prevent devastating wildfires in Nopiming Provincial Park. Last year, a wildfire destroyed most of the park’s landscape as well as several cottages and campsites.
The report says the park needs time to regrow and recover. It also recommends limiting disturbances from mineral exploration, eliminating military training exercises in the park, involving Indigenous communities in decision making, and establishing a robust FireSmart program for cottagers and residents in the park.
Eric Reder, a wilderness and water campaigner with the Wilderness Committee who prepared the report, also said there needs to be serious change in how we address climate change.
“This is the climate change that has arrived, climate catastrophe, and we don’t have the resources to fight the fires that we’re likely to see,” Reder said.
“So the immediate call is to start acting on climate and reduce our fossil fuel emissions, or we’re going to continue seeing fires like this or worse.”
17 fires burning as of Monday
A wildfire that broke out late last week near Norway House Cree Nation is now about 80 hectares in size and is being held.
“It was getting close; people were starting to panic,” Norway House resident William Swanson told Global News.
A wildfire bulletin issued by Norway House Cree Nation said about 25 firefighters and two helicopters worked on fighting the flames over the weekend.
According to the province’s FireView map, there were 17 wildfires burning in Manitoba as of Monday, with six of them out of control.
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