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Front Burner Transcript for June 11, 2025

Guest Host: Allie Jaynes

ALLIE JAYNES: Hi, I'm Allie Jaynes. I'm a producer on Front Burner, and I'm filling in for Jayme Poisson.

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CARL GENAILLE: [breathing heavily] I'm scared... Trapped.

AJ: The footage Carl Genaille shot on Saturday is terrifying.

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CARL GENAILLE: This is my camp, man.

AJ: Dark orange skies, red flames, sparks flying. Genaille and 18 other construction workers were on a site in Northern Ontario near Sandy Lake First Nation, close to a 156,000-hectare fire that's still blazing out of control.

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CARL GENAILLE: It's all around us.

AJ: Genaille, who's a former firefighter, says he told the crew they had to leave. But the fire closed in fast. There was nowhere to go. So he says he threw water on some blankets and told the crew to put them over their heads. They ended up sheltering in a metal shipping container as the smoke and flames raged around them. Here's what he told our CBC News colleague, Gavin Axelrod.

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CARL GENAILLE: I didn't think I was going to make it, but I just accepted it, man, and started helping out the guys and calming them down.

AJ: Rescue attempts by air were unsuccessful for hours. Finally, trucks got through to drive them out, and they boarded evacuation flights in nearby Sandy Lake. Over the last few weeks, about 40,000 Canadians have been evacuated from their homes due to wildfires. What's striking about it isn't just that huge number. It's that these fires are happening in so many different places across the country. The majority of those evacuees are from Manitoba. 21,000 had been registered as of Monday.

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MANITOBA EVACUEE: Everyone's feeling fearful. We've, you know, we've gone to our homes and we just looked at it and, you know, uh, uh, there's nothing you can do.

AJ: Another 11,000 in Saskatchewan.

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SASKATCHEWAN EVACUEE: We cry, eh? That's our home.

AJ: About 4,000 in Alberta.

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ALBERTA EVACUEE: I looked up and there was smoke, and then all of a sudden an RCMP pulled up to our driveway and asked us to leave. He said, "You guys have to leave right away."

AJ: And there are a number of other smaller communities in B.C. snd Northern Ontario also under evacuation order. On Tuesday, a local state of emergency was issued for the town of Squamish, a popular tourist destination not far north of Vancouver. Fires are rapidly encroaching on the community. Smoke from all these fires has meant poor air quality in cities across the country and even internationally.

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REPORTER: On Friday, Toronto and Montreal ranked among the top five polluted cities in the world.

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UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: This smoke is going via Greenland, southern Greenland, to Iceland, to Europe within a few days.

AJ: Most of the communities directly affected by these wildfires are small and remote, and primarily Indigenous. Families have been forced out of their homes with no idea when they might be able to come back or what will be left when they do. And many are ending up scattered across the country in completely different cities from other community members or even from their own family. We're gonna bring you some of those stories today. We're starting in Thunder Bay, Ontario. For the last few days, the city has been the main hub for evacuations from Sandy Lake First Nation. Sarah Law is a reporter with CBC in Thunder Bay, and she's been speaking to some of those people.

[Music: Theme]

AJ: Hi Sarah, thank you so much for taking the time.

SARAH LAW: Thank you for having me.

AJ: Okay, so you're in Thunder Bay, you were at the airport yesterday to speak with some of the people who were arriving from Sandy Lake. And can you just describe the scene? Like what was it like there at the airport?

SARAH LAW: Mm-hmm. Well, it was pretty busy. We watched the Hercules plane come in. Super loud, large plane. And basically the evacuees were shuffled into the airport and then directed across the way to an evacuation hub that they've set up. So kind of a separate area in the airport. And all of the members of the Sandy Lake Band Rep Program are there. They're directing people on where to go. They had a bunch of food, pizza, [laughs] and drinks available. Snacks for folks. And then basically they were going through a bunch of lists. I saw a lot of clipboards of, okay, who is staying where? So we know that some evacuees are staying in hotels in Thunder Bay for a night or two. Some are staying in Lakehead University's dorm rooms, because of course most students are home for the summer, so that works out pretty well. And then there's basically three host communities for Sandy Lake members. They're going to Kapuskasing, Cornwall, and Mississauga. And it seems like they're trying to get people to those communities as quickly as possible, like limit the time that they have to spend in Thunder Bay. Because really, people just want to be in one place, right? They want to limit the amount of travel that they have to do.

AJ: Right, so this was like a temporary stopover and then they're being filtered out to all these different communities.

SARAH LAW: Yes.

AJ: And I mean, I can only imagine how emotional this must be for them and how shell-shocked they must feel. Like what sense did you get? I mean, I know this is just sort of their first stop, but like what they were going through mentally.

SARAH LAW: So it was pretty interesting, in that generally, spirits were pretty high. There were some emotional moments with relatives reconnecting with one another. Some of them were moved earlier than others, so as the different planes were arriving, you know, people were seeing, oh, that's my sibling, that's my child, and, you know, reunification. So those were some nice moments. But there was also a lot of laughter in the evacuation hub, people kind of joking around. Humour is a really big coping strategy in the Northern communities, I've found. And so just a lot of teasing one another. And I heard this motto from a lot of Sandy Lake members.

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SANDY LAKE EVACUEE: And I was like, keep calm, eat bannock.

[laughter]

SANDY LAKE EVACUEE 2: Northerners don't panic -- eat bannock!

[laughter]

SANDY LAKE EVACUEE: Or don't panic, eat bannock. [laughs]

AJ: That's awesome.

SARAH LAW: For sure. So, obviously there's a lot of emotions. People are kind of looking around like, okay, what's happening next? Where am I going? Because once they're arriving in Thunder Bay, they don't actually know which community they're staying in for the long term until they're told, okay, you're boarding this plane at this time and off you go. So I can only imagine, you know, the toll of that uncertainty. I know I, myself, am a big planner. I like to write out my whole itinerary for my life. So that uncertainty, I think, is taking a toll. But at the same time people are just trying to do what they can to stay as positive as they can right now.

[music]

AJ: Can you tell me about some of the stories that you heard from evacuees and, you know, what they told you about what they're going through, how they're handling the situation?

SARAH LAW: I spoke with one young man who said he was just really afraid for his fellow community members, worried about, you know, the consequences of the fire, the smoke inhalation, especially. We know today, for example, there's a lot of air quality statements and warnings in effect for well over a dozen First Nations in our region. One family I connected with, Mary Ellen Kakegamic, she was there with her two daughters, six-year-old Sarah and nine-year-old Carise.

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SARAH LAW: Is there anything that you wish you could have brought?

SARAH KAKEGAMIC: Mm, I don't know. My dog.

SARAH LAW: You had to leave your dog there?

SARAH KAKEGAMIC: Yeah, a dog.

SARAH LAW: Do you want to tell me about your dog? What's its name?

CARISE KAKEGAMIC: She's like, grey and she's like, kind of small.

SARAH LAW: And, you know, the children described how it was windy and smoky. I was surprised that the one young girl, Sarah, said that she fell asleep on the Hercules plane. Which I found funny because everyone else I talked to said, oh, that plane was so loud and so bumpy. You know, it was scary conditions.

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MARY ELLEN KAKEGAMIC: At one point, it was -- the sky was just orange and there was [SARAH: No, yellow.] ashes coming down. Yeah, yellow, orange.

SARAH LAW: Not knowing what their community will look like when they come back home, only being able to bring so much.

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CARISE KAKEGAMIC: Like, maybe two plushies, headphones, a charger, and my device.

MARY ELLEN KAKEGAMIC: And your clothes.

CARISE KAKEGAMIC: Yeah.

SARAH LAW: You know, it really puts into perspective for a child what those priority items are, but also the essentials, right? I spoke to one member of Sandy Lake's Band Rep Program today, and she said there was a very young boy, the family didn't even have time to pack him any clothing, any change of clothes. So it was the Band Rep members went into town, they picked out a bunch of-- a couple of outfits for him, just to, you know, get him through these next couple of days.

[music]

AJ: So what other kind of supports are being offered at the evacuation hub?

SARAH LAW: Well, there's all of those essential supplies that I mentioned to get people through the next moment, the next day, the next few days. There's also an elder on site offering interpretation services. We know language might be a barrier for certain community members, particularly the older adults. I was also speaking with members of the Band Rep team about the importance of the mental health supports, the social service supports.

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RACHEAL ANISHINABIE:A lot of our people have, like, anxiety. They left our community and they see the community, like, burning. Like a fire right behind the community, right? So it's really traumatizing for the kids, um, the adults, the youth, our elders, because that's our home.

SARAH LAW: Making sure that people have access to medical assistance. There was a woman on dialysis when we were there. Making sure that she had all of her supplies and everything that she needed. A lot of individuals in the community are, you know, going through addiction. They're on the Suboxone program, and some of them expressed concerns about, will I be able to get my Suboxone wherever I'm going? So, the support workers are trying to make sure that all of those arrangements are in place by the time they arrive to just reduce that stress, right? The stress of the uncertainty in a situation like this.

AJ: Now, you also spoke with the Chief of Sandy Lake First Nation, Delores Kakegamic. And as I understand it, she's actually still in the community overseeing the evacuation efforts. And so what did she tell you about what it's like there right now?

SARAH LAW: Yes. Well, she's been very busy, hard to get a hold of, of course, because her priority is her community. I know that yesterday she actually went up in a helicopter to overlook the fire. And I can give you some information about that fire. It's called Red Lake 12. It's more than 156,000 hectares large now, which is super significant. It's the biggest fire in our region. The latest information we have from Ontario's Ministry of Natural Resources is that we did get some rainfall, the temperatures have dropped, and the winds have eased up a bit since the weekend. So that has helped to stunt the fire's growth, but obviously it's still a very significant concern and it's not just impacting Sandy Lake as well.

AJ: This is one community in particular, I'm wondering if we could just zoom out a bit and could you talk to me about what the wildfire situation is like in Northwestern Ontario right now more broadly? Like there are a number of other communities that have also been evacuated, right?

SARAH LAW: Yes. Deer Lake First Nation is affected by the same fire, Red Lake 12, as Sandy Lake. Hundreds of community members there have been evacuated to Toronto. Webequie First Nation, they're being impacted by a fire called Nipigon 5, and hundreds of their members are in Barrie, Ontario. A little earlier in the season, Ingolf and Wabaseemoong Independent Nations were really hit hard by the impacts of the smoke from a fire called Kenora 20. They were sent all the way to Niagara Falls and were staying there for almost a month. Just on Friday, the community gave the all-clear that community members can go home, so those repatriation efforts are starting. We're also hearing that North Spirit Lake First Nation and Keewaywin First Nation have issued evacuation orders, but we're still trying to find more details about that and where those members will go. I mean, last summer, I don't recall evacuations like this in northwestern Ontario. I'm still fairly new to the region. I know that evacuations aren't uncommon, but it just feels like every day it's another community, another fire of concern. I keep hearing about just how much of a dry season we've had overall. And even though we have had some recent rainfall, I've been talking with Fire Information Officer Chris Marchand and he's described how the dry conditions run really deep into the soil, which just makes it that much harder to extinguish the fires. It also puts the landscape at risk of lightning fires too. I mean, we know so many of the fires are human caused, but lightning is also another big source of concern.

AJ: Wow. Sarah, thank you so much. I really appreciate talking to you.

SARAH LAW: Thank you so much.

[music]

AJ: Okay, so now let's go to Manitoba. As I was saying in the intro, at least 21,000 people are still out of their homes, and many of them have been for weeks now. The province's transportation and infrastructure minister has asked travellers to avoid non-essential trips to Manitoba so that they can free up hotel rooms for evacuees. Pimicikamak Cree Nation is one of the communities under an ongoing evacuation order. Yesterday, I spoke to the Chief of Pimicikamak, David Monias, who has also had to flee.

AJ: Hi, Chief Monias, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today.

CHIEF DAVID MONIAS: Thank you for having me.

AJ: So for our listeners who aren't familiar, could you just tell me a little bit about your community of Pimicikamak?

CHIEF DAVID MONIAS: All right. My community is, it's about an eight-hour drive north of Winnipeg, northeast. We have approximately about 10,000-plus band members, 7500 of which live on reserve. And mostly Cree speaking. We-- Our name's Pimicikamak, and it's our sovereign name for our community and our nation.

AJ: And before you left, can you just describe to me what the fires looked like? Like what could you see, what could you smell, what could you hear?

CHIEF DAVID MONIAS: Well, first of all, like the fires... We live on like an island. And there's another big island that's next to us. That was on fire, so we were fighting that to make sure it doesn't jump across over to our mainland. But we were able to, with the winds of course being favourable, able to get that under control. But the meantime, while we were fighting that fire, there was another fire. And then because nobody was working on it, it grew bigger. And it's moving northward towards our Manego [ph] bridge and uh, a Chenbake [ph], and then [unclear] threatening our, our community. So then we were told that we would have to evacuate fully by the incident commander. And the winds were blowing from the west and going easterly towards our community. So we ended up doing a full evacuation. And we called on the army if they can bring the Hercules, we needed some help. We called ministers, we called the prime minister, we called the premier and their ministers. Trying to get any kind of help to help us out to evacuate people.

AJ: Did you feel like you were getting the help that you needed?

CHIEF DAVID MONIAS: Well, it was -- the delays were very long. I mean, even now we're still waiting for the masks and the goggles for us to use in the community while we're, while we were there. And because the smoke is pretty hard and it's hard on your lungs. And I couldn't stop coughing for a couple of days after I came back this weekend from Cross Lake. [AJ: Wow.] Because we have finished evacuating the people. So, yeah, it was difficult getting a cooperation, because we had declared the state of emergency. Uh, that didn't really do anything. Didn't really make government move and start providing services to us in a collaborative way. But instead they had stated that they had a contract with Red Cross to provide service to us. And we started contacting those guys, and then we started looking at the-- how we can get people out of the way. And most of the people [unclear] out to Winnipeg, Thompson. And the Hercules came after Premier Wab Kinew declared a state of emergency for our community, and which... Canadians, apparently, need that in order to assist our people. Despite the fact that we have treaties and we have a treaty relationship and that they have a fiduciary obligation and responsibility to our Indians and Indian lands, we still had to beg for it.

[music]

AJ: On a similar note, in terms of actually fighting the fires, I mean, we've heard from a lot of nations in Manitoba who felt that they have not gotten enough resources either from the province or from the feds to deal with the fires. And I mean, I saw, for example, that Chief Gordie Bear of Pukatawagan Cree Nation was saying that they were having to use the hoses they normally use to flood the hockey rink to fight these huge fires. And so can you tell me a little bit about the kind of, uh, I guess fight that you've had to go through to get resources just to actually fight these fires, let alone evacuate people.

CHIEF DAVID MONIAS: Well, it was a bureaucratic nightmare trying to navigate their system to get the help that we needed. In our community of our size -- it's a huge community -- we only have one fire truck. [AJ: Wow.] And with limited supplies of hose and pumps. And so I had asked for a truck, water truck. And it was slow in coming. I mean, we're not getting anything. So it was difficult. And it still is, we still have not enough hoses. Hoses and pumps get destroyed in a fire. [AJ: Right.] When you're dragging that hose right into the fire, you hit tree stumps, you uh, you rip some of the hose, you make holes in there. And then it's no good to you.

AJ: I mean, do you feel like this is the Manitoba government that needs to be stepping up to do more, or is it the federal government, or both?

CHIEF DAVID MONIAS: Well, I think both of them. I mean, we have to look at the-- what is it that we need to do, right? Make sure that everything is all collaborative, that we're not playing a jurisdictional game -- your territory, my territory, your people, my people. You know, we got to get away from that. It's just fire has no recognition of boundaries or jurisdiction. It will attack anybody and anything. And we have to do the same thing when we're fighting the fire. Let's not piecemeal it out. Let's do it jointly and put our resources together, all the firefighters and all the, uh, air bombers. Water tanks, they call them.

AJ: I mean, I understand your community faced a similar wildfire evacuation two years ago. Um. I mean, given that this is something that has happened so recently, that your community's so vulnerable to this, do you feel like these levels of government are taking this seriously enough?

CHIEF DAVID MONIAS: Well, it doesn't feel like they are. I mean that uh, now they are, they're starting to put more resources together. Uh, you know, Premier Wab Kinew has been, uh, been good to take my calls and assist me in where, where he can. You know, he provided a, a used fire truck to our community. But we're still waiting for that. Uh, we also need the air purifiers to get rid of the smoke inside the house. That just stays with you for a long time. Mine was uh, sticking to me at least for two to-- two days to two-and-a-half days, uh, just to get rid of the smoky smell.

AJ: Wow.

CHIEF DAVID MONIAS: And you can't return people like that when they have asthma, COPD. So we're going to have to figure out how we're gonna do that.

[music]

AJ: Where are you now?

CHIEF DAVID MONIAS: I'm in Winnipeg right now. It's [unclear] two offices running around trying to help out with the logistics here. And hoping to go back to Cross Lake to relieve my council who has been there from since day one. And start planning for what would the return home look like and how do we plan for that. I mean, it's a little ways off yet but I think preparedness is always the key. And we have to do the same thing here. We have to prepare for the eventual return of our people. And they'll still be expecting fresh water, their sewer tanks empty and so forth. Water and food, groceries are plentiful at the stores. You know, there's a lot to prepare for.

AJ: Mm-hmm. Where are other members of the community? Like I understand they're scattered in different places, right?

CHIEF DAVID MONIAS: Yeah, they're in Winnipeg. Most of-- Majority of the people are in Winnipeg. Some people are in Paulson, some people are in Brandon. Some people are in Portage la Prairie and some people are in Dauphin. So they're in various communities depending on what hotels we can catch, uh, to put people in.

AJ: And, I mean, are you in touch with many of them? Like how are people holding up right now?

CHIEF DAVID MONIAS: Well, it's hard to stay in touch. We do. I do visit there once on some hotels. But most of the time I go on Facebook to do live updates and they all follow me there. Uh, to give, give them an update on what the fire situation is like, but also, you know, what-- that we hear their concerns about food, eating, accommodations and so forth. And we are trying to problem-solve those issues as they come along.

AJ: I know you spoke to media maybe a week ago about, like, your frustrations trying, trying to get some people to evacuate. Like some people didn't want to leave, is that right?

CHIEF DAVID MONIAS: Well, there's some that feel like this is not gonna come here. This is gonna be a... This is gonna blow over like the last one and stuff like that. The other one came very close, and it was stopped dead in its tracks by Muskegon water, a lot of moisture in that area. So it died there. And so our fire from two years ago, we had to evacuate everybody within three hours in the middle of the night. [AJ: Wow.] And this one we started preparing when the smoke started coming in. We had started removing people with breathing problems to the city. The main thing is that they're out now, so. And that's what, that's what counts.

AJ: At this point, do you have any sense of when people might be able to go home?

CHIEF DAVID MONIAS: Well, you know, I've been asked that question by so many people. Right now, we are-- we have the Hotshots from uh, the United States firefighters. So they're providing us with updates as to where the fires are and how is it a threat to our community. So we're still on a day-by-day basis to hear. And so it's not up to us. The Office of the Fire Commissioner, as well as RCMP, they make that joint decision as to when to open up the roads and our community. But we have to prepare for everybody, right?

AJ: Mm-hmm.

CHIEF DAVID MONIAS: So. You know, they told me 10 to 12 days yesterday. But they said, "Don't quote me," they said, because they're not... anything can happen with the fire and with the winds and stuff like that. It's so unpredictable and unstable that they can't give us a definitive date.

AJ: Do you have any sense of what you'll be returning to?

CHIEF DAVID MONIAS: Well, back to our homes. So far the fire didn't get to the houses. We did have flying embers that came. And our fire spotters spotted them and they took care of them. So it's, it's relatively how they left it.

AJ: Chief Monias, thank you so much for this, and I hope that you and your whole community get to go home really soon.

CHIEF DAVID MONIAS: Well, I'm crossing my fingers every day, yeah. A good [unclear].

AJ: Thank you. Take care.

CHIEF DAVID MONIAS: All right, thank you.

[Music: Theme]

AJ: All right, that's all for today. For more information on wildfires affecting your community, check our website, cbc.ca, or your local CBC Radio One station. I'm Allie Jaynes. Thanks for listening to Front Burner and we'll talk to you tomorrow.

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Wildfires rage across Canada - Transcript

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