Smoke, empty shelves, rationed gas: Wildfire smoke closes highway, isolating Cree Nation of Chisasibi

Chief Daisy House flew home to her community of Chisasibi on Sunday in a nearly empty 37-passenger evacuation plane.

Alongside two nurses, she travelled back into the community of 5,000 that is in Phase 1 of its evacuation — relocating about 180 people away from the smoke and wildfires in the area.

When House landed after being stuck in Montreal for days, she got right back to work.

Since July 7, her team has been working to get basic supplies into town after the only road in and out of the community — the Billy Diamond Highway — closed, halting deliveries of food and gasoline.

"The shelves are emptying at a rapid pace," said House. "It was hectic, stressful, and a lot of anxiety."

'Everything has to be transported by air'

Typically the local grocery store receives two to three shipments by truck per week, said House. But since the highway closed on Monday, a Hercules military plane supposed to serve the community has only been able to land once. House says rough weather on Monday kept it from making the trip.

"Now I hear they're having mechanical issues. So we're still waiting for food supply," said House. "I think we're going to have a few frustrated people if we don't supply the shelves soon. It's been a week."

The community has even had to ration gas. People can fill their cars up to the $40 mark.

"We've never airlifted food and never airlifted fuel because it's cheaper to transport it by road. So now everything has to be transported by air," said House.

"If we hadn't rationed the gas we probably would have run out by now."

In addition to the dwindling supplies in town, House says some families are separated because of the road closure while others are experiencing extremely smoky conditions, especially earlier in the week when it was nearly completely dark at 5 p.m, says House.

She hopes in the next few days the road will reopen, allowing residents and supplies back in. Failing that, she suggests a convoy could be organized at a safe time so families can be reunited.

"Day by day, they keep thinking they can come home," said House.

"The convoy, it depends on the weather, depends on the rain and depends on the forest fires. So it's hour by hour and day by day."

Although the air quality has improved a bit over the past few days in Chisasibi, authorities set up safe air shelters at the community banquet hall, auditorium and the youth centre to deal with the nearby smoke — a sign of the devastation to the lush forests Cree enjoy throughout the year, says House.

"That's challenging for a Cree community that lives off the land. That's the part that's the saddest for us. We're just watching it burn,' said House. "We're managing in spite of everything."

1,600 airlifted out by Air Creebec

Air Creebec is one of the airlines evacuating several communities along the coast with a total of 1,600 people having been airlifted out as of Monday morning, said president Tanya Pash.

"It's been quite challenging," said Pash. "Our pilots are very well trained and they're doing the best they can and it's always a safe operation. However, if the smoke is too heavy and the visibility is too low we just cannot land."

Working with local food wholesalers, she says the airline, which has 16 planes in operation, started flying in milk, bread and other essentials on Monday.

"We've been very lucky, our crews have been volunteering overtime within the limitations they're able to give us and it's been a phenomenal effort," said Pash.

LISTEN | Cree communities on high alert:

Highway is the 'life vein' of the region, says grand chief

Chisasibi is nearly 16 hours away from Montreal by car and Cree Grand Chief Mandy Gull-Masty says the location of Cree communities only adds to the challenging wildfire season.

"The highway closure that cuts through the coastal territory of the Cree Nation is really the life vein of activity in and out of the region," said Gull-Masty.

"I think that it has been really challenging for the Cree Nation members. You know, when something like this occurs, of course there is that fear with the unknown, the uncertainty."

For now, she says most communities are evacuating due to smoke as there is no immediate danger for them to be impacted by the fire. But moving forward, she fears for the future of the territory as it becomes more susceptible to fires.

As of Monday evening, there were 22 active fires in the province. The government and the province's forest fire protection agency decided to lift the ban on open fires in or near a forest, which has been in effect since May.

"I'm not even going to refer to it as climate change anymore. It is a climate crisis and the Cree Nation are climate refugees leaving our territory," said Gull-Masty.

"It has been unprecedented and I think that even our elders they've indicated we've never seen the land behave this way."