Resident of village threatened by fire posts video of raindrops: 'It was amazing'

CANDLE LAKE, SASK. — After weeks of being ready to evacuate at a moment’s notice due to a wildfire burning just kilometres away, the owner of JD’s Mini Golf posted a video of rain falling outside her business in Candle Lake, Sask.

The video included a note for viewers to have the sound on, so they didn’t miss the soft patter as the drops fell on the resort village Saturday.

“Amongst everything that’s going on right now with the wildfire at our doorsteps, you just needed to be able to back away from that and hear the sound of the rain and what it was bringing to us,” Jackie Davis said in a phone interview on Sunday.

“It was amazing — long time overdue. It was like, over a month since we’ve had some.”

The Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency said all fires in the province received some rain on Saturday, with the Shoe Fire that’s been threatening Candle Lake getting 22 millimetres.

That’s not a lot, but the SPSA said the moisture was appreciated and gives firefighters a small window where they can take the fight directly to the fires while their intensity is lower.

The Shoe Fire remained at just under 500,000 hectares in size on Sunday, officials said, and was burning uncontained about 11 kilometres from Candle Lake.

“Things are looking good now. Things could always change. But we’re not expecting anything to, any time soon, over the next couple of days,” Bryan Chartrand, executive director of land operations for the SPSA, said during a news conference Sunday.

Elsewhere on the Prairies, the Manitoba Wildfire Service said the province had a low-to-moderate fire danger level Sunday, but the northeast had a high-to-extreme fire danger and that lightning starts were anticipated.

One fire in that region, which stretches from Bird River to Bissett, was approximately 203,720 hectares and remained out of control.

“To provide context as to the seriousness and size of the wildfires, the city of Winnipeg is approximately 46,000 hectares in size,” the province’s fire bulletin on Sunday said.

It added that another fire in Manitoba’s northwest that’s been threatening the evacuated town of Flin Flon and surrounding communities is now approximately seven times the size of Winnipeg.

Thousands of people remained out of their homes due to evacuation orders in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta over the weekend.

Back in Candle Lake, where a voluntary evacuation order has been in effect since late last month, Davis said many people have left and the resort community feels a bit “scary.”

She said the puddles from Saturday’s rain had already evaporated.

“The sound and feel of the community is definitely not what it would be for into June. Usually there’s lots of people getting excited, looking to come up to the lake for the summer and get into their cabins and campers, ready for that seasonal experience, and it’s quiet,” Davis said, adding she’s thankful to firefighting crews as well as volunteers.

The Prime Minister’s Office said Sunday that Mark Carney had convened the Incident Response Group with ministers and senior officials to address the wildfire situation.

In a readout following the meeting, the PMO said the group was briefed on efforts to respond to the fires and support evacuations. It said that included the mobilizing the Canadian Armed Forces to help evacuate Sandy Lake First Nation in Ontario, where a fire was burning about six kilometres away.

In northern Alberta where an evacuation area remained in effect over the weekend near the Alberta-British Columbia boundary, the County of Grande Prairie said on its website that hot, dry, and windy conditions were expected to bring “extreme and unpredictable fire behaviour.”