Paul First Nation wildfire evacuation to be lifted Thursday

While the Paul First Nation remains under a state of emergency, an evacuation order should be lifted Thursday morning, a coordinator with the disaster services team said.

Darlene Rain said fire crews are still tending to hot spots and heavy smoke remains in the area, but residents will be allowed back to their homes at 10 a.m. Thursday morning.

Around 21 homes on the northeast part of the reserve were evacuated, and one family home was lost to the fire. The local school remains closed.

Return home slightly delayed

Residents were initially expected to return to their homes Wednesday afternoon, the executive director of the Alberta Emergency Management Agency said earlier in the day. 

"We fully expect that sometime today the Paul First Nation will also lift their evacuation notice, and their 164 residents will be able to get back to their community and get back to life," Scott Long said Wednesday.

Lower temperatures and moderate winds are helping firefighters with the brush fires west of Edmonton, Long said. 

"We've got a lot of assets in the area from the communities and from Agriculture and Forestry, which are really extinguishing and containing the fires."

On Monday, 21 homes in the northeast corner of the reserve were evacuated. The remainder of the residents — about 1,100 people live on the reserve — were put on alert to leave with little notice.

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A home in a field was destroyed when the blaze swept through the outskirts of the reserve, located along Lake Wabumun, about 70 kilometres west of Edmonton.

"You can't determine the direction the fire is going to go, because it's based on the wind direction, so everybody was on alert on Monday," said Darlene Rain, the reserve's disaster services team co-ordinator.

"We evacuated all the homes that were directly affected by the fire. Those people were told to leave."

Band officials, with help from the RCMP, went home to home to ensure the houses were empty, Rain said. 

'Very dynamic situation'

Firefighters have been battling fires around the Edmonton area for several days. So far, only two homes have been lost and two people hurt, both firefighters.

"We did have two firefighters that were injured in the Lamont area, both are at the U of A and in stable condition and expected to make a full recovery," Long said.

"We did have two residences that were destroyed and one fire truck lost, unfortunately, but it could have been a whole lot worse."

Long credits Edmonton-area communities and their firefighters for keeping the fires from doing further damage.

"Wildfires, grass fires, especially with winds up ... It's very dangerous work, very hard work but we've got a lot of dedicated folks doing it."