Gypsumville lodge owners prepare to evacuate as Homebrook fire threatens property

The owners of a camping lodge near Gypsumville, Man., are preparing to leave due to a massive fire nearby. 

"It is huge. The smoke in the sky at night, you see the redness of the flames, depending on the wind directions," said Colleen Liske, co-owner of Agassiz Outfitters, about 20 kilometres north of Gypsumville.

The fire, which has burned tens of thousands of hectares near Homebrook, is the largest of several active fires across Manitoba.

Fires sparked by tinder-dry conditions and fanned by strong winds are burning in a number of areas of the province, including a blaze that destroyed homes on Misipawistik Cree Nation near Grand Rapids, Man., and a fire on Canadian Forces Base Shilo near Carberry.

For Liske, the Homebrook fire is another setback to her business, after the COVID-19 pandemic wiped out their 2020 and 2021 seasons.

"Pretty stressed. Not only are we dealing with the pandemic, right? Tourism has taken a big hit from the pandemic," she said.

"Now we're dealing with devastating forest fires. It is so dry in the bush. It's the driest I've ever seen. It's like a matchbox out there."

The fire is currently around 78,000 hectares and approximately 80 kilometres long, a spokeperson for the provincial government said.

Fire officials are preparing for the possibility they'll have to evacuate Homebrook, a community north of Lake Manitoba that's about 240 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg.

Smoke could impact the nearby communities of Skownan First Nation, Waterhen, Mallard and Gypsumville.

Hope for rain

Fire crews have set up sprinklers to try to protect the buildings on Liske's property.

There was a light sprinkling of rain Wednesday morning, but not enough, she said.

The head of the fire has mostly moved past the property, but firefighters worry that if winds shift from the south to the northwest, as expected later Wednesday, it could blow the fire back towards Liske, she said.

Some scattered showers could be coming to help firefighting efforts in southern and central Manitoba, but it's hard to forecast how much will fall, Environment Canada meteorologist Shannon Moodie said.

"We can see the smoke plumes on satellite, and it's just so disheartening," she said.

"Hopefully there is relief in sight. I know the firefighters out there are doing the best that they can, and if there's any way that the weather can assist them, we definitely hope that that is coming."

CBC Manitoba meteorologist Jon Sauder reports that a cold front passing through the region will bring a change in the weather sometime around midday on Wednesday.

After that comes an extended period of wet and cooler weather, with showers or periods of rain from Thursday through Saturday, he forecast. 

The forecast says Thursday will have the heaviest rain, but showers will become more scattered on Friday and Saturday.

"We're really heading into a very unsettled pattern," Moodie said, which will stir up some pockets of precipitation.

"So not a broad swath of area is likely going to get showers."

More significant rain will fall in the Red River Valley and southeastern Manitoba on Thursday, with the possibility of some thunderstorms, she said.

Fire evacuations

Two homes were destroyed and about 80 households had to flee after a brush fire burned out of control into Misipawistik Cree Nation, just south of Grand Rapids, Man., almost 400 kilometres north of Winnipeg, on Tuesday afternoon. 

A southern Manitoba fire fuelled by extremely dry conditions and strong winds forced the evacuation of 18 homes near Carberry, about 160 kilometres west of Winnipeg, in the early hours of Tuesday morning. 

The fire is mainly within the Canadian Forces Base Shilo range and training area. The base issued a statement Wednesday saying the fire had not grown significantly in the last 24 hours, having stalled in the northeast corner  and mostly burned out in the southwest area.

The fire burned an area of approximately 15,000 hectares. It's believed a lightning strike started the fire, the statement said.

The fires and evacuations are not expected to hamper the province's vaccine rollout, as most of the people in those communities have already been fully vaccinated, said Johanu Botha, the operations lead on Manitoba's vaccine task force.

"We prioritized those communities that were most at risk to a variety of natural hazards, but in particular, wildfires," he said during a technical briefing Wednesday morning. 

"In almost all cases, communities under threat of wildfire have both doses, at least one dose, and by the end of this May will have both doses in."

The fires forced the closure of several sections of highway on Tuesday. Those include:

• Highway 5, from seven kilometres south of Highway 1 to 10 kilometres north of Highway 2, which reopened around 10 a.m. Wednesday.
• Highway 6, between Highway 60 and St. Martin Junction.
• Highway 307, from Seven Sisters Falls to Eleanor Lake/Otter Falls.

Highway 20 from Cowan to Camperville, which had reopened Tuesday evening, was closed again around 1 p.m. Wednesday afternoon.