The Current - “Truly a nightmare:” evacuees describe fleeing fire on the prairies

Episode Date: June 4, 2025

Thousands of residents in Manitoba and Saskatchewan have been forced out of their homes by raging wildfires and are now sheltering, in some cases, hundreds of kilometres away. Despite harrowing journeys to safety and what they describe as a lack of support from governments, two evacuees discuss how proud they are of their communities, where neighbours have come together to support each other.

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Hello, I'm Matt Galloway and this is the current podcast. Brooke Kindle never thought she would watch her life burn down on a Tesla app. She lives in Denerbeach in Saskatchewan near the Manitoba border, Brooke Kindle never thought she would watch her life burn down on a Tesla app. She lives in Dener beach in Saskatchewan near the Manitoba border, moved there last year to be closer to her parents. And as wildfires came closer, Brooke and her family evacuated, forced to watch the fire approach on a screen. We ended up losing power in town. So everybody, everybody didn't have power anymore. So nobody had cameras. And then from there, we sat on the Tesla app and watched my car. We parked it at the end of our driveway just so that it didn't

explode or anything against our house. And we just watched on the app as the temperature got hotter and hotter and hotter and hotter. And once it got into the 70 degrees, it disconnected. So that's how we knew that our street was on fire. And that was kind of the last communication that we had got from Denaer because at that point everybody was evacuated and everybody was out. So we didn't hear anything else after that. Brooke is 35 weeks pregnant with her third child. She left last week before the fire ripped through her town. When I packed, I didn't realize that, I don't know if anybody did though, that how risky the fire was in our area. We were more so packing because I was so pregnant and I needed to be close to health care if something was to happen and our roads got shut down.

I'm sure everybody is trying their best and it's an extremely stressful, intense, and high pressure situation. But living on a border town and the conversations between either side, it feels as though Manitoba got a lot more support and the support that we got in Saskatchewan really did feel like it was too little too late. And I don't know if the priority changed to Denaer or, you know, it's not like there's not

other places that are burning in the province. So I know we're all limited on resources. It definitely did feel like in the days leading up to it, we were on our own. Brooke is now waiting in Saskatoon for her baby to be born and grappling with what she's lost. We were as fire smart as you could be, especially we had sprinklers going on our lawn and on our house.

That's still, it's still gone. It would have been a lot easier if I didn't have little kids because it's their memories, it's their life. It's all the clothes that I was saving for them when they grew up, you know, all the clothes from my four-year-old that I was going to hand down to my 18-month-old, you know, like it's just a whole lifetime of their childhood that is erased completely and that's hard to stomach.

That's the hardest part about all of this is just the fact that our life is never ever going to be the same. Yet we still are trying to celebrate the fact that we're having a daughter any day now. It's very confusing. Wildfires are burning across the prairies. Smoke has drifted as far east as Ontario and Quebec and beyond. There are states of emergency in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. In Saskatchewan, more than 9,000 people have been displaced by the fires. In Manitoba, more than 17,000 people have been evacuated from communities all across the province, including all 5,000 residents of Flintlawn. Evacuees are being sheltered in homes, hotels and arenas across multiple provinces, some as far away as Niagara Falls and Barrie, Ontario, and many in the city of Winnipeg. Marcy Marcuse

is the host of CBC Winnipeg's morning radio program, Information Radio. Marcy, good morning. Hi, Matt. What is it like in your town right now with so many people coming from elsewhere in the province? You know what, first of all, I'm going to speak emotionally to it. I think it's a clash of emotions because you don't just have people coming here coming here fleeing in such a high moment of stress and not knowing what's left behind like we just heard from that poor resident of Dener beach.

But then you come here and you're without your people, your surroundings, your home. You have your kids in tow, you're bored. You're in the middle of a big city. These are rural folks from small communities all over the north. Just on another level, outside of that, it's just physically busier in Winnipeg. So whenever you can see when you're around the grocery stores, the big box stores,

people stuffing their cars with donations in many cases to take to the evac centres, and then around those evacuation centres in the city, it's just very, very busy. But it's certainly a time of high stress. We've not been through something like this in Manitoba before. We've certainly in Winnipeg housed evacuees from past wildfires. We're no stranger to that, but not to this scale

as obviously across Canada, not to this scale and certainly not across Manitoba. As we've got 28 fires burning, I think you mentioned the number, 17,000 people moved from north to south. It's really been incredible. Where are people staying? I mean, I'd said in the introduction, in homes, hotels and arenas, when you have that many people who arrive in a city, where are people ending up? Well, what's really interesting is it's been a little bit different this time to the past,

because in the past we sort of had the convention centre set up with cots, for example, from the Red Cross. Now we have two main evac centres in Winnipeg. There's about 1,400 people or so that are in what is a soccer complex here, locally known as the Leeler Soccer Complex. So they're right in the city. There's an arena that's caught folks.

But then otherwise, the Premier right away last week, a week ago today when he called the state of emergency said, you know, try to connect with friends and family first and then go from there. So a lot of people, you know, are with individual family and friends, not all of course here in Winnipeg, as you alluded to, people are in hotels, people are in rural communities. Many of the First Nations have stepped up

to help other First Nations. Norway House, for example, has opened its arms to a whole bunch of people. There are people in Peguis that have come down from Pimicicamac. And that connection has been quite beautiful as well because we haven't really seen that before. And the people in Peguis said, you know what, we have been flooded out, we get this. So they sort of opened their arms to welcome fire evacuees.

It's really a moment of displacement for so many people in those communities. And you hinted at this. We spoke earlier this week with Chief David Monius from the Pembroke First Nation. He talked about how many of the people who are being evacuated have never left their communities before, that these are folks from First Nations

who are finding themselves in a very different environment. How are people managing that, as you understand it? I think it's difficult. I mean, I think that maybe people don't even know how they're managing it yet, because they're still in the shock phase. Like, you really can't underscore enough how quickly this has all happened in Manitoba.

A week ago, state of emergency, we were sitting in Flint, Florida, sorry, pardon me, in Lactobani a week ago, doing a show about how two people had died there, but the community was looking now forward to kind of clean up and then all of a sudden the North really lit on fire. But some of it is finding peace in the small moments and leaning on the donations that have been coming in, getting breaks.

There's an organization here, the Manitoba Métis Federation actually, their donation organization has been sending buses to the evac centers and taking people 25 at a time to another place. So to another place where they can shop for donations, they set up a big sort of a portable classroom where they've stuffed full donations, just give the parents a quote unquote shopping opportunity and then they'll look after the kids. So there's people sort of wrapping their arms around folks to try to give them that break. But as you mentioned, I mean, these are folks that are coming from small communities. So Flintlawn has 5,000 people, it's a full city. Pimichikamak has, you know, 6,600 members on reserve. But then you're talking about Tataskwiak,

2,000 people, Mathias Cologne, Pukatuwagan, 1, 1700 folks, there's only 56 people that live in Sheridan, 600 in Cranberry Portage. When you live in a small place like that, you've chosen to live there. You might know everybody, your friends and your neighbours, and you're there for the North. I mean, Manitoba's North is about back trail country and waterfalls and hunting and fishing and space. Now you're stuffed into it, the city of Winnipeg and stuffed into maybe, as they're known caught city in an arena and you know, it takes its toll. So I think the premier was talking to Adrian Arsenault yesterday, because she's here of

course in Manitoba and he was saying the next thing is going to be what's going on with people's mental health. And I think we're just getting there now here. Matthew 1.10 It must say something to you about your, I mean you know this town so well, about your city and also your province. When people as the way that you described are stepping up to help those who find themselves forced to flee their homes as you said in short notice and in a very different community,

how does that strike you? I think that the thing that strikes me is how desperate people are to help, you know, other Manitobans. So I'm not going to sugarcoat it. I mean, there's always a concern about how welcomed people will be, you know, that the premier said that we have to open arms and welcome people. And then after you worry that folks are going to sort of, you know, somehow not want all of these extra people around and in town, then you realize that people are stepping

up. I think it says that that's how we get through things in Manitoba. I can't help thinking about the flood. I covered that here. There were 25,000 people that were evacuated from their communities at that time. Different situation, but when you started to see the losses, it's really when you started to see sort of the hope that can come. And I think that people are thinking about that right now. But I mean, it's the little things, Matt, like I made a list here and I got to find it because it's just those little things. It's people saying, come stay on my front porch, or I'm packing the diapers in the back of my van because I'm a mom too and I, you know, I get what that feels like. It's people saying, there's people saying that, you know, I'm pumping breast milk, I've got two rooms at my house. There's people writing to me in the people saying, there's people saying that, you know, I'm pumping breast milk.

I've got two rooms at my house. There's people writing to me in the morning saying, there's five hotel rooms at this real hotel. Why can't they come here? So it says to me that despite all of our flaws as human beings, and you know, Manitobans aren't perfect, in moments like this, I think we do really step up for each other and shine. That's amazing. We're going to speak more about Saskatchewan in just a moment, but you

heard Brooke at the beginning of the conversation talk about how there are real concerns in that province about the response there and people feeling as though they've been left on their own and perhaps left to the goodwill of others like those in your city. What are people saying in Manitoba about how these fires are being handled by authorities? Well, I mean, leadership to leadership, there's a lot of criticism that we've been reporting on. Obviously, Chief Gordy Baer at a news conference yesterday talking about the people in Pukatawag and Cree Nation fighting fire with something, quote, no bigger than a garden hose.

Pimma Chickamaq talking about the fire being on our doorstep. We have 10,000 people and we're fighting to even just get water bombers. Garrison said to you with a quote yesterday saying it's like trying to fight fire with a water pistol, he said yesterday. So a lot of leaders are saying, you know, our small northern communities are just ill-prepared with equipment, even though in the same moment they're grateful for their response and acknowledge we're in an emergency situation. So there's problems with that. There are challenges obviously with hotel rooms, people still questioning why Manitobans are staying in other provinces.

The premier saying, you know, in other emergency cases, other people from other provinces stay here. But that doesn't change the fact that we still have questions about do we have enough space and how is that coordination going? Yeah, calls to use the Emergency Measures Act as you know, Matt, on that front. And early on, I just want to back up here. I mean, when these fires first started, you know, around, they started previous to Lactobonnie, but when Lactobonnie really started burning, we got a picture of something called the Connect

Program. This is supposed to be the rural way where a lot of communities register and members register to sort of be notified about evacuation so they can prepare at least themselves. And a lot of criticism of that, you know, we were hearing stories of people going door to door, knocking on their neighbor's door saying, get out now. And they were like in the garden shed with earbuds in doing yard work. And this is in an area where we had loss of life in the province, where Sue and Richard Noel lost their lives trying to flee the fires. So there's going to be a lot to talk about after this, a lot to evaluate on a whole bunch of fronts. But right now, people are still in somewhat of a moment of gratefulness.

I mean, huge appreciation for the military, huge appreciation for the Red Cross and all the coordination they are attempting to do here with an understanding of it's, you know, that it's a monumental task. And then I would say lastly too, just that, I mean, volunteer firefighters, Matt, can you even imagine being a volunteer firefighter and then now this is what you're facing and this is what you're facing to try to protect your friends and neighbours? So a lot of gratefulness as well. Matthew 20 You are doing vital work in telling these stories and connecting people in a moment

of real urgency. I've been listening and I really appreciate you taking time to talk to us in the middle of it. Marcy, thank you. Oh, you're more than welcome. And I would be amiss if I didn't mention Brittany Greenslade, Josh Crabbe, Mike Arsenault, Megan Ketchison, Chelsea Camp, Joanne Levesseur, Narturo Chang and others of my colleagues that are out in these fire zones talking to the evacuees.

Take care. Thank you very much. Thanks. Marcel Marcuse is the host of CBC Winnipeg's information radio. Is drinking raw milk safe like RFK Junior suggests? Can you reduce a glucose spike if you eat your food in quote unquote the right order? I'm registered dietitian, Abby Sharp. I host a nutrition myth busting podcast

called Bite Back with Abby Sharp. And those are just some of the questions I tackle with qualified experts on my show. On Bite Back, my goal is to help listeners create a pleasurable relationship with food, their body and themselves, which in my opinion is the fundamental secret to good health. Listen to Bite Back wherever you get your podcasts.

Maureen McBrattney and her husband, Greg, are also residents of Tenere Beach, Saskatchewan. They evacuated to Yorkton. Maureen is undergoing dialysis treatments and so they had little choice about where to go. We had to come to Yorkton because of her dialysis because Saskatoon and Regina. We're staying in a hotel right now because we don't know anybody in Yorkton. We've tried to contact Red Cross and our house insurance and we're only here in the hotel till Saturday. Saturday the hotel's booked so we got to move out and nowhere to go. Put a call in to our our Wawa Nisa insurance. They haven't got back to us yet so right now everything that we're doing and the hotel's not cheap is on our own dime. I'm 73, she's 65, we're both retired, living on fixed incomes and Scott Moe in his infinite wisdom

is giving no help to nobody. Yeah, a little deserted, a little defeated, not with my family. With the system. My next guests also had to flee their homes. Dawn Hledy is a business owner in Flynn Flawn, lives across the border in Creighton, Saskatchewan. Kirsten Fritch is the border in Creighton, Saskatchewan.

Kirsten Fritch is a teacher in Creighton who lives in Baker's Narrows on the Manitoba side of the provincial border. Good morning to you both. Good morning. Morning, Matt. Dawn, how are you doing? I'm all woken up to the nightmare for another day.

It's been a week since we've been first evacuated from home, so I'm in my third location. Gratefully, a friend was able to reach out and house me now. So this is where I am for hopefully not long, but it doesn't really look like there's an end in sight right now. You're with your husband now as well. And he's, he, it's worth mentioning he's a town councillor in Creighton. He was just until recently up there helping to fight the fires.

What has he told you about what's going on? Everything is really minute by minute, hour by hour. It's what they think they can predict at one moment completely changes the next. It's truly a nightmare. I feel like you're living in the twilight zone. You don't want to wake up in the morning because you fear what has happened during the night. Your phone is always connected to you, trying to get updates from anybody. But he's to the point now where he's not sugar coating it. I mean, he was in the beginning just because he didn't want to scare anybody. It's just a nightmare. It's something that I wouldn't wish upon anybody.

It's emotionally, mentally, and physically exhausting. I'm sorry. What was it like leaving Creighton? I mean, what we've heard is that things change so quickly, right? So what was it like on the road? Well, when you lock your door for the first time, not knowing if you're going to come back, it's completely emotional. It was complete pandemonium to try and get out of town. We've never been through an experience like this before. So I mean, you've got 4,000 people that are leaving one community all at once, and

it's just complete chaos because you don't know where you're going. There's lack of cell service to even try and find out where you're going. You're trying to connect with family and phone calls are being dropped. You're phoning hotels that are completely booked and have no room for you to stay. You can't even pull over on the side of the road because you've got a convoy of 20 cars behind you and then you got a whole city that is evacuating behind you. That sounds like a nightmare. Yeah, it really is.

I mean, we were at a point where the Saskatchewan highways were closed. We couldn't exit out through Saskatchewan, which we normally would. Going down Highway Number 10 in Manitoba, that was closed as well the day prior. So there was a sense of being stranded. I did go back into the community on Thursday to help my husband cook, because we do have a restaurant there, thankfully, because when you do evacuate everybody,

you realize very quickly that every resource you have is now gone. Kirsten, does that sound familiar, listening to Dawn run down what she's been through? And I mean, how are you doing in the middle of all this? I mean, we're on our third location as well. I empathize with Dawn, her and I know each other. Listening to Maureen McBrattney and Marcie sort of talk about their experiences and Brooke, my heart just goes out. I had sort of an opposite experience. I had children out of town. I'm a school teacher. And we were ordered to return to the city.

It's about a six-hour drive to return to Creighton. Highways were closed. And we were driving against the convoy of cars towards the evacuated towns to reunite students. Why were you ordered? You were at a track meet, is that right? And so you were ordered to go back into town, so I guess so the students could meet with their parents or something?

Yeah, so that we could reunite everyone. When we were told to come back, there wasn't an evacuation order yet. It actually happened while we were in an area with no cell phone service. So we didn't even know until we had turned on to a more central highway and started getting all of the notifications and I just tried to keep our students calm. I had a very clear directive from my boss, we had a really clear understanding of what would happen and the parents just waited for us in the school parking lot. What did you tell the students? This has to be terrifying.

So we had gone through with them the day before, we had a pre-evacuation order So we had gone through with them the day before. We had a pre-evacuation order. We had gone through with them plan A, B, C, D, E. We had told them, don't worry. You are our responsibility, and we will not do anything to put you guys in harm's way. We will get you with your families, regardless what happens.

And we just tried our best to remain calm, focus on getting everyone where they needed to be. We even dropped a student off on the side of the highway. His parents pulled over out of the convoy, waited. We dropped him off and continued on our way. It was incredibly surreal. It's going to be hard for you to keep your head as well in the middle of all of this.

I mean, the students are one thing, but you're dealing with this as well. Do you know? Yes and no. I knew that I had a task. My task was to make sure that my students were looked after. I have an incredible husband and I just knew that he would be looking after our children. So as worried as I was, it gave me something to focus on. I was texting parents, phoning parents, it's just, it kept me busy. I finally broke down when my husband wrapped his arms around me after all the students had been home safely.

There's a lot of concern from people about where they're going to go, how long they're going to be there, but also what their governments are doing to help them out. We heard from Brooke and Greg earlier, both with real frustration at the Saskatchewan government. The premier of Saskatchewan, Scott Moe spoke with CBC radio in Regina yesterday. Take a listen to this.

We're talking with the federal government, of course, on if military support should come in to ensure the safety of those, of all communities, whether they're evacuated or not. And talking with other organizations like the Red Cross, if there's anything that we can do to, you know, expand the supports that we have for far too many people that are not in their home right now.

Don, do you think the Saskatchewan government is doing enough right now? No. I know for a fact that our town mayor was pleading for help would have been on the Thursday telling SCOTMO that we needed resources in and yeah, yeah, they're on their way, they're on their way. It's been false promises ever since that first initial phone call. When I was in Saskatoon, I'm like, okay, Red Cross is the place we phone. I phoned Red Cross when I was in Saskatoon. Nobody picked up the phone.

You felt like you didn't have the support of your province. You didn't have the support of your premier. The organization that everybody knows is supposed to help you in terms of crisis. Nobody was answering the phone. What do you do? Where do you turn? It was very frustrating sitting in Saskatoon knowing that the premiers and all the politicians were there having their meetings and you go online and you see them posting about the beautiful city and how they're doing this and that. And meanwhile, your whole life is burning down and nobody can even pick up the phone and answer your questions. What do you want to hear from your premier right now? Um, he just, he doesn't understand the logistics of the North.

Half of his province is burning down and we've been crying for help. And it's, it's frustrating to know that there's military in the sky, helping out other places. And I mean, grateful that that other places have been evacuated safely and stuff is being done for them. But we need help too. It is pretty sad that a local restaurateur has to be the one that's in charge of the crisis management. My husband has helped ordering fire supplies. I'm grateful for him that he was there helping cook. But where's the people that are experienced in these situations that have been through this? Our little town has not been through this. We are literally problem solving minute by minute.

And it's people in the town that have to do this. Kirsten, what about for you? What's your sense as to how officials in Manitoba are handling this? So I appreciate Wab Kanu's quick emergency response, but same with Don. We contacted Red Cross six days ago. We received a confirmation number. We've heard nothing. I phoned them and was basically told that as long as we

have a roof over our head, and that is definitely by the grace of our friends, and right now I'm in a hotel, that if we had a little bit of cash and if we had a roof, please let them focus on other people first because they are at capacity. You both know each other and you're both living through this nightmare together. I just wondered, Kirsten, what would you say to Dawn and to other people who find themselves in this situation that you are familiar with because you're in this as well?

Dawn, I am so grateful for Dan, for you guys, for looking after all of the volunteer firefighters. Matt, every firefighter in our town right now is related to a student of mine, a friend of mine, a colleague of mine. They are people we know, people I work with. My gratitude for all of the human beings in my community can never be expressed. And Don and

Dan are incredible people. And I will never, ever forget the way my community came together. And I'm very proud to live there. Don? Yeah, in any sort of form of trauma or crisis. These Northern towns stick together, we bind together, it's all hands on deck. My husband's safety, our safety, it's compromised minute by minute sometimes. These wildfires are coming so fast, things are changing so fast and it's so scary. But yet everybody is risking their lives to save our communities. And I cannot express how brave these firemen are, how selfless these people are working 24 hours a day. They're not sleeping, they're not eating, but yet they're there to save our community.

And it's still a big fight. There's a long road ahead, but these people are truly amazing back home and hopefully we will still be Northern strong one day once again. You're both really good to take the time to talk to us. You have a lot going on and you are in a really difficult spot. So I do really, it's important to hear from you.

I really appreciate you taking the time and I wish you both the very, very best. Thanks for being here. Thank you. Thanks for having us, Matt. You've been listening to The Current Podcast. My name is Matt Gallow best. Thanks for being here. Thank you. Thanks for having us, Matt. You've been listening to The Current Podcast. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening.

I'll talk to you soon.