Flin Flon wildfire evacuees gather at Assiniboine Park for barbecue

As thousands of evacuees remain out of their homes due to wildfires, some from Flin Flon are trying to stay connected to their northern Manitoba community in Winnipeg.

Wildfire evacuees from Flin Flon got together at Assiniboine Park on Tuesday evening for a barbecue. More than 50 people attended, including families, adults, kids and seniors. 

Organizer Luis Nikkel said they planned to feed 1,000 to 1,500 people, not only from Flin Flon but also from other affected communities. Get-togethers like this are therapeutic for the evacuees, he said.

"It's basically to just get the community together so that they can socialize and have a bite to eat and have fun," Nikkel said.

He reached out to a lot of his friends who sponsored the event and helped spread the word through social media.

Nikkel, a development miner by profession, is an evacuee from Snow Lake. He left a week ago.

"It felt a little chaotic, because I was woken up at 9 in the morning and I just had three hours to leave," he said. "There was a lot of thick smoke in Snow Lake due to the wildfires."

Isabel Plamondon said events like this help her reconnect with her community and be in a familiar environment.

"It's a little surreal, because I know everybody is not doing what they are expecting to be doing. It is really nice to connect with people that I hadn't seen or hadn't been able to reach out to earlier when things were going on," Plamondon said.

Another evacuee, Dorothy Dorion, said she is not happy with the arrangements in Winnipeg for the evacuees, as she is living in one hotel room with seven other people. 

"It's a lot to handle and it's very chaotic," she said.

"There's a lot going on all the time, and you got to stay on top of things, and the financial help is not there now. Everyone is struggling with the funding and food and clothes."

Bob Lyons has been monitoring his home through his security camera.

"These events really do take some of the tension," he said.

"People like ourselves, we know we have a house only because we have monitoring systems. We have a cottage, we don't know. And there's a lot of people that actually know that they've lost all of their possessions, perhaps."

People from Flin Flon are sticking together through events like the gathering in Assiniboine Park, Lyons said.

"I think it helps with the sense of community. We are hoping that everybody can manage somehow to rebuild … so that we don't lose a lot of our friends and community members as a result of this disaster."

Cool weather, rain help

Wildfires in Manitoba have pushed about 21,000 people out of their homes, prompting provincial officials to ask travellers to stay away from the province to free up hotel space. The largest fire, near Flin Flon and Sherridon, is approximately 307,781 hectares and remains out of control.

According to Environment Canada, Flin Flon got 2 millimetres of rain over the weekend, while other parts of Manitoba got upwards of 20 mm. 

Flin Flon Mayor George Fontaine said the cooler weather and rain helped their firefighting efforts, and so far, the city has not lost any structures.

"Today is more of a monitoring day than a fighting day. Things have calmed down a little bit. People are still doing their firefighting. Everybody's organized," Fontaine said.

Fire crews know there will be flare-ups in the days ahead and are preparing, he said.

"They are ready to jump when the action is needed."

If the situation remains stable, they may start talking about return plans sometime next week, Fontaine said.