Pikangikum First Nation evacuees will be heading home after wildfires forced them to leave for nearly a month.
The Independent First Nation Alliance is announcing evacuees are returning from Thunder Bay, Sioux Lookout, and Timmins and will be home by Saturday at the latest.
Chief Dean Owen is acknowledging the organizations that helped with the evacuation and repatriation.
“We thank all of our partners for the hard work they have put in over the last month. In particular, we thank the host communities that have kept our people housed, fed, comfortable and safe.”
People from other communities who were displaced to Thunder Bay will begin flying home this week.
Flights will begin Tuesday after the city has housed around 800 individuals from Poplar Hill and Deer Lake for nearly a month now.
“Plans are in place now to repatriate these folks back home to their communities,” says Deputy Fire Chief Eric Nordlund. “The plan looks like that will begin Tuesday, with some flights scheduled for Poplar Hill, and that will continue on through the rest of the week for Poplar Hill, possibly into Thursday, and then likely on Friday beginning with Deer Lake.”
Nordlund says it was not yet known whether Thunder Bay would be hosting evacuees in the future, but the community has the capabilities.
“We’ve been doing this for quite a few years, housing people from Northern communities,” Nordlund adds.”So for quite a few years now, Thunder Bay has been asked if they could be host communities to help manage hosting folks. So we’ve built some capacity and expertise principally through Thunder Bay Fire Rescue to coordinate and manage our ability to host.”
This comes as the region reports no new forest fires on August 9.
There are 114 active fires in the region, 13 of which are considered not under control.
