Thunder Bay is welcoming evacuees from Red Lake who are fleeing a major forest fire.
The city will host people who were forced to leave last night because of a 420-hectare fire a handful of kilometres away from the town.
Acting Fire Chief Greg Hankkio says a plane with around 450 people will be landing this afternoon, and we could be asked to host around 600 more.
The town is also evacuating to Dryden, Kenora, Pickle Lake and other communities.
“COVID-19 prevention measures are in place in Thunder Bay and evacuees will abide by the health and safety measures in our community. We have also been informed by Dr. DeMille that at this time there are no active COVID-19 cases in the community of Red Lake,” says City Manager Norm Gale.
Red Lake has a population of around 4,500 people.
Hankkio says Fort Hope and Pikangikum may also need to evacuate, but isn’t certain if the city will host them. Thunder Bay announced in the spring that it wouldn’t host evacuees from northern First Nations if they were displaced by flooding. The Acting Fire Chief says that’s because the city felt the COVID-19 pandemic would pose a large risk to their emergency responders, but the situation is different now.
“This is really another point-in-time decision based on our capacity, much like it was back in the spring when we made that decision then,” Hankkio says.
