Evacuees focus on restocking food as Sask. wildfires decrease

As residents from northern Saskatchewan displaced by wildfires return home to their communities, they're now starting to focus on restoring some semblance of order to their lives.

Hall Lake and Clam Lake Bridge were the last two areas in the province that had evacuation orders in place this past week. Local leaders and the province lifted the evacuation orders for the two areas on Wednesday.

Kyla Mckenzie said most of the evacuees she has been working with are happy to be back home, but they're now shifting their focus to restocking food and finding their pets.

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Mckenzie has been volunteering with Red Cross since the wildfires started flaring up in early July. She normally works with the Lac La Ronge Indian Band. 

"We will be putting together hampers for people who lost, you know, most of their food and don't have means to replace it themselves. So we'll be putting together boxes of nonperishables for 750 families within our six communities," Mckenzie said.

That will be happening on Tuesday, when the Lac La Ronge Indian Band receives the items.

"They don't have much in terms of food in their houses anymore, because they were gone for two weeks. So the band has been trying to help out," Mckenzie said.

Wildfires decreasing

As of 10 a.m. CST on July 26, there were 73 active wildfires burning in Saskatchewan, two of which were new. Eleven of those forest fires are not contained.

This year's total amount of wildfires sits at 660. This time last year, the province had dealt with 256 wildfires.

Mckenzie noted that despite the shrinking number of fires, there's still work to be done for cleaning up. 

"There's still fires actively burning in this area. The fires aren't out by any means. In terms of direct threat to any of our communities, right now [crews are] on the front lines doing the mop-up for all of our communities," she said.

"We're not really done by any means," she said.