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The normally loud and busy summer resort village of Candle Lake was quiet and empty on Saturday as wildfire burned just north of the community.
The closest blaze to the popular spot about 80 kilometres northeast of Prince Albert — the Shoe Fire that began at Lower Fishing Lake and then merged with the Camp Fire north of Snowden — was still the largest in the province on May 31 at 305,343 hectares (nearly 760,000 acres) or more than 13 times the size of the city of Saskatoon and is still not contained, according to Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency (SPSA).
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A voluntary evacuation order was issued for the village on May 28, and the fire activity has deterred people from going to their cabins.
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“It’s very quiet,” said Shari Klassen, Candle Lake resident. “The only people coming up are to haul their stuff out.”
Klassen said so far the community has been lucky but that could change.
“It could be very devastating,” she said. “Right now it’s not because we don’t have the fire.”
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JD’s Ice Cream & Mini Golf shut their doors recently for safety reasons.
“I made the choice to close to make sure none of our employees came in when they didn’t need to be here,” said Jackie Davis, owner of JD’s. “Time will tell (on business impacts), I’m very hopeful that in the near future we’ll be able to open the store.”
Davis said it’s been a heartbreaking start to the season, adding it’s difficult to go from hearing the joy and laughter of children to nothing.
“I’ve shed a few tears,” she said. “This is my dream — today is five years since we owned (JD’s) — but I just gotta look back and realize we built (something) the community loves.
“It’s emotional but I gotta keep thinking of the good things, all the little kids that come because I’m auntie to a lot more than my nieces and nephews, I’m auntie to a lot of the kids in the community and I can’t wait to see them all.”
Davis has also noticed that non-permanent residents aren’t taking any chances and are taking their valuables back home with them.
“Over the last three or four days we’ve noticed lots of people taking their toys, trailers, ski-doos and boats out,” she said.
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Candle Lake held an Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) meeting Saturday morning to provide an update on the current wildfire situation.
“I gave the briefing to the EOC staff as to where the fire is now, what’s currently occurring in the village and how we’re preparing the fire department, just in case this does infringe on Candle Lake.” said Jim Arnold, Candle Lake Fire Chief.
Arnold said the wind has been holding the fire at bay so far, but it hasn’t been enough.
“The fire has got incrementally closer, it’s slower progress to Candle Lake at this time due to the way the winds are,” he said on Saturday.
“It still is approaching — it’s at about 19 kilometers or slightly less than that (from the village) at this point.”
A fire break is being built around Candle Lake as well as surrounding communities and Arnold said good progress has been made.
“The fire break is not completed yet,” he said. “However on the northwest part of the lake they’ve got three fire breaks in place, on the southeast side of the lake Minowukaw is completed.”
Minowukaw’s fire break is four bulldozer blades wide and in the northwest it’s 10 bulldozer blades wide.
“Our goal was to make it so that we had less people in the village in respect to if they have medical conditions that could be affected by the smoke,” said Arnold.
Arnold said the people in Candle Lake have been very supportive of each other.
“The support from the people in this community has been absolutely amazing,” he said.
“We found out (fire crews) were coming here and the community got themselves organized to feed 220 people the next breakfast and then they just kept feeding them after that.”
— with files from CKOM News
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