Moe says wildfires are making it hard to get supplies up north

Premier Scott Moe gave an update Wednesday on the wildfire situation in northern Saskatchewan.

Moe told Gormley it has been really challenging to get food and fuel trucks to some of the communities being threatened by wildfires.

“The challenge at times is the actual fire being near the community. Then at other times, it’s when the fire has a highway deemed to be unsafe,” he said.

The premier confirmed the government and community leaders are working to make sure they get as much food and fuel to those communities as they can, just in case access to them gets cut off by fires.

“My understanding is the power is on in most of our … northwestern communities (as of Wednesday morning), so that’s going to help with the fuel security, keeping our water systems going (and) keeping the chillers and coolers going,” he said.

Moe added he believes there’s a good amount of trained people for the amount of wildfires that are burning.

“They are doing what they can to steer these fires into safer places alongside our pilots,” he said. “The intensity of these fires this spring is pretty serious in certain areas.”

According to Moe, many of the firefighters live near the communities they’re protecting, so they’re familiar with the area.

The Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency’s wildfire map said Wednesday morning there were 27 active wildfires burning in the province, eight of which were classified as contained.

It also classified five wildfires as being not contained, with 13 of them being subject to an ongoing assessment.