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

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.

The fire was moving at “unbelievable” speed, Simmons said — it was swallowing up land at a rate of about two kilometres an hour at the front of the fire, and about one kilometre an hour on the sides. At times, flames were travelling against the wind, but the fire still raged.

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.