FLIN FLON, Canada — More than 25,000 residents in three provinces have been evacuated as dozens of wildfires remained active Sunday and diminished air quality in parts of Canada and the U.S., according to officials.
Most of the evacuated residents were from Manitoba, which declared a state of emergency last week. About 17,000 people there were evacuated by Saturday along with 1,300 in Alberta. About 8,000 people in Saskatchewan had been relocated as leaders there warned the number could climb.
Smoke was worsening air quality and reducing visibility in Canada and into some U.S. states along the border.
“Air quality and visibility due to wildfire smoke can fluctuate over short distances and can vary considerably from hour to hour,” Saskatchewan’s Public Safety Agency warned Sunday. “As smoke levels increase, health risks increase.”
In Manitoba, more than 5,000 of those evacuated are from Flin Flon, nearly 400 miles northwest of the provincial capital of Winnipeg. In northern Manitoba, fire knocked out power to the community of Cranberry Portage, forcing a mandatory evacuation order Saturday for about 600 residents.
The fire menacing Flin Flon began a week ago near Creighton, Saskatchewan, and quickly jumped the boundary into Manitoba. Crews have struggled to contain it. Water bombers have been intermittently grounded due to heavy smoke and a drone incursion.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service deployed an air tanker to Alberta and said it would send 150 firefighters and equipment to Canada.
In some parts of the U.S., air quality reached “unhealthy” levels Sunday in North Dakota and small swaths of Montana, Minnesota and South Dakota, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s AirNow page.
“We should expect at least a couple more rounds of Canadian smoke to come through the U.S. over the next week,” said Bryan Jackson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in the U.S.
Canada’s wildfire season runs from May through September. Its worst-ever wildfire season was in 2023. It choked much of North America with dangerous smoke for months.
Associated Press reporter Julie Walker contributed to this report.
