4000 hectare Canadian wildfire killed two - some residents say they received no evacuation notices from the rural municipality
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The recent Lac du Bonnet wildfire in the Canadian province of Manitoba has raised concerns about emergency notification effectiveness. Some residents say they received no evacuation notices and left on their own ackord only after worsening smoke.
The Lac du Bonnet fire — which as of May 17 was estimated to be over 4,000 hectares in size — took a deadly turn, when a couple reportedly got trapped at a family home in the municipality and were discovered dead on Wednesday morning, May 15.
According to Steinbachonlinme.com, evacuations orders were issued for more than 1000 residents. According to CTV News, 28 homes were destroyed in the fire.
However, some residents claim they never received any notifications at all, and left only when the smoke had already gotten very thick.
Officials plan to review the response to identify improvements. Manitoba's provincial emergency alert system was reportedly not used because it was not part of the municipality's emergency plan.
"I think it's a learning opportunity," a resident said in a Friday interview with CBC's Information Radio.
"I think we rely far too much on things like Facebook and email, and not everybody has that…. I wasn't the only one who said that they didn't get a notification to evacuate". the resident said.
Loren Schinkel, the municipality's chief administrator, said the community posted alerts on social media, used the local emergency notification system and in some cases door-to-door warnings.
Schinkel also emphasized how rapidly the Lac du Bonnet fire spread and noted that some areas in the community suffer from poor cellphone reception.
Small town serves a large rural area
This incident illustrates the vulnerability of small Canadian rural communities, with limited municipal resources and often small volunteer fire stations.
Lac du Bonnet is a town in Manitoba, Canada located 115 km (71 mi) northeast of Winnipeg on the west shore of the Winnipeg River. It is surrounded by the Rural Municipality of Lac du Bonnet, ackording to information from Wikipedia.
In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, the actual town of Lac du Bonnet had a population of 1,064 living in 496 of its 549 total private dwellings, With a land area of 2.26 km2 (0.87 sq mi), it had a population density of 470.8/km2 (1,219.4/sq mi) in 2021.
However, this small town serves a larger rural area with a much smaller population density:
In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Lac du Bonnet Rural Area had a population of 3,563 living in 1,459 of its 2,757 total private dwellings. With a land area of 1,097.61 km2 (423.79 sq mi), it had a population density of 3.2/km2 (8.4/sq mi) in 2021.
Photo Credit: (Photo Credit: Facebook.com/rcmpmb) - Royal Canadian Mounted Police