Wildfire that forced evacuation of Cranberry Portage could take weeks to put out: wildfire director

By Darren Bernhardt & Rachel Ferstl
CBC News
May 13, 2024
Category: Forest Fires
Region: Canada, Canada West

A wildfire that’s threatening the northwestern Manitoba community of Cranberry Portage hasn’t gotten bigger, but first responders could still be fighting it weeks from now, a provincial wildfire official said. The entire population of Cranberry Portage evacuated Saturday as a massive blaze marched toward the community, devouring trees on thousands of hectares of land. Earl Simmons, the director of the Manitoba Wildfire Service, said the fire hasn’t moved or gotten smaller. Though the province said Sunday it was about 35,000 hectares in size, it is actually about 31,500 hectares (or 77,838 acres), after subtracting the space that bodies of water take up. …”We could be fighting that fire a month from now,” Simmons told reporters outside his department’s office on Monday afternoon. …In his 40 years of experience with wildfires, Simmons has “never seen a fire move like this fire moved,” thanks to high winds and extremely dry conditions in the area.

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