Looters target evacuated home in La Ronge

Denise Bradfield left her home in La Ronge due to raging wildfires burning near the community, and the last thing she needed was to deal with looters.

“I don’t even know if my home is going to be standing when I get back, and here they are looting it,” she said. “It’s a violation.”

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Bradfield’s surveillance camera showed looters walking towards her home around 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday. About thirty minutes later, they reappeared with her walker and a wagon full of stuff, but then they went back into her home.

“I think they decided to turn around and they stayed there overnight,” she said.

Bradfield said a friend checked her home the next day and found the thieves had left milk and frozen lasagna containers on the counter.

Through a video call with her friend, she was able to have a quick look through her home, and while she isn’t sure exactly how much was taken, she did see that the looters took change from her bedroom, some Temu packages with her name on them, and a computer.

The next day, the Saskatchewan RCMP received a report that a vehicle had been stolen from a residence in La Ronge. The vehicle was located later that day at a checkpoint on Highway 2. Waskesiu RCMP seized a laptop and packages from the vehicle, and mail that allowed them to connect the recovered items to Bradfield’s reported theft.

“I’m just so happy that they caught them and they’re not doing it anymore,” she said. “We can all breathe a sigh of relief that maybe the looting is over… because this adds stress to the situation.”

Two men, 25-year-old Jesse Forest and 39-year-old Justin Powder, both from La Ronge, were charged with possession of property obtained by crime and possession of break-in instruments. Forest faces two additional counts of failing to comply with a probation order. Both men have been remanded into custody until their next scheduled appearance in Prince Albert Provincial Court on June 9.

RCMP officers continue to patrol communities in the north, despite wildfires burning nearby. (Denise Bradfield/Submitted)

The RCMP told larongeNOW that officers are patrolling and responding to calls in all northern Saskatchewan communities, including La Ronge, despite the wildfires.

According to Lyle Hannan, emergency operations centre director for the Lac La Ronge Region, only registered emergency and essential personnel are permitted to travel into the region.

“The conditions in the area remain dangerous, and all the resources in the community need to be focused on the coordinated and strategic firefighting in the region,” Hannan said in a news release.

“Water pressure, water volumes, security, public safety, food, accommodation, medical, and other resources can only sustain the needs of essential personnel and their activities. If persons are caught compromising these resources, creating security issues, or disregarding the direction of officials, the local authorities will, and have, exercised their powers to detain persons and/or their property during this emergency.”

The Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency said it has encountered situations where people have refused to evacuate.

“Then the issue is we have to do an emergency rescue,” said agency vice president of operations Steve Roberts.

“If the firefighting community says it’s too risky to be on site, then you should probably heed that advice and think about leaving when they ask you to leave the premises because the risk is too high to stay.”

A total of 34 communities in northern Saskatchewan have been evacuated because of wildfires, displacing 10,000 to 15,000 people.

–with files from Derek Cornet and Teena Monteleone