Hundreds of wildfire evacuees from Webequie First Nation return home from Barrie, Ont.
State of emergency declared May 29 over wildfire known as Nipigon 5
Evacuees from Webequie First Nation in northwestern Ontario are on flights home after spending two weeks in Barrie due to a wildfire near their community.
The remote Ojibway First Nation declared a state of emergency on May 29 due to Nipigon 5, a wildfire that has since grown to 10,800 hectares.
More than 400 of the community's most vulnerable were sent hundreds of kilometres south to Barrie, about a one-hour drive north of Toronto, where they had been staying in hotels.
Webequie's Chief Cornelius Wabasse has confirmed 200 people were repatriated on Monday, with 200 more expected to arrive back in Webequie on Tuesday.
"The fire has decreased in activity. It has moved away from the community and we have fire crews over there maintaining it," Wabasse told CBC News early Tuesday afternoon. "The air quality has improved."
It's expected all of the Webequie evacuees will be home by Thursday, he said, which means they'll be back in time to celebrate National Indigenous Peoples Day (NIPD) on Saturday with singing, drumming, a community cookout and other activities.
"People are very happy to go back to their community," Wabasse said.
However, hundreds of people from other First Nations in the region remain displaced due to northwestern Ontario's largest wildfire, Red Lake 12, which measures 177,000 hectares.
More than 2,000 people from Sandy Lake First Nation are staying in several communities in southern Ontario after the Canadian Armed Forces were called in to assist efforts with Hercules aircraft last week.
Members of Keewaywin First Nation have also been evacuated, according to tribal council Keewaytinook Okimakanak. Evacuation efforts have been paused in North Spirit Lake for now.
Meanwhile, roughly 800 people from Deer Lake First Nation have been in Toronto for more than two weeks.
It's up to community leadership to determine when they're ready to repatriate their members. Deer Lake's Chief Leonard Mamakeesic says he'll be meeting with MNR officials on Wednesday to discuss next steps for his people.
Keeping people, resources together
Despite the stresses at hand, Mamakeesic says Deer Lake's evacuation has been going well.
ISN Maskwa, an Indigenous-led emergency operations centre, has been providing security services and other support with assistance from Indigenous Services Canada (ISC).
The main priorities have been keeping people fed, distributing donations and making sure everyone is safe, he said.
A doctor, a dentist and community nurses have been rotating through Deer Lake's accommodations in Toronto, "so nobody is missing their appointments."
Deer Lake members were sent to Cornwall two years ago because of wildfires. Mamakeesic says it's been important for him to keep everyone in the same host community instead of having them scattered in hotels across multiple locations.
"I pretty much moved my whole community here, all the resources and all the departments," he told CBC News on Tuesday. "I think we're doing great."
As of Monday night, the wildfire hazard was mainly high across northwestern Ontario, with scattered patches of moderate and extreme hazard in some areas.
People can check the province's interactive forest fire map online for the latest information on fires closest to them.
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