Up to 120 members of the Canadian Armed Forces are on their way to help Manitoba fight wildfires that have so far displaced more than 1,300 people from First Nations east of Lake Winnipeg. Evacuations are complete or underway at four Indigenous communities most heavily affected by the forest fires consuming tracts of boreal forest in eastern Manitoba. The logistics involved in evacuations by air made getting people out of Pauingassi and Little Grand Rapids more urgent. Blair Owen, another Little Grand Rapids councillor, said he's worried climate change and a shortage of firefighting resources will make evacuations a seasonal event. The second-largest fire is an 1,150-square-kilometre conflagration in the peaty wetlands and coniferous forest east of Lake Winnipeg, north of the Berens River.

Source: CBC News July 21, 2021 01:51 UTC