STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Wildfires are moving across the Canadian prairies, forcing evacuations in three provinces. Videos on social media show firefighters trying to escape fast-moving flames. Reporter Katie Toth brings us more.
KATIE TOTH: Out-of-control wildfires have forced more than 20,000 people to evacuate their homes in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and northern Alberta. The Canadian military was tasked with flying people out of the most vulnerable Manitoban communities this week. And fire crews from other provinces and Alaska have come to Saskatchewan, where Premier Scott Moe declared a state of emergency yesterday after pressure from Indigenous nations in the province.
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SCOTT MOE: I do fear things are going to deteriorate with the weather that we have ahead of us in the days ahead and not get better until we find ourselves in, you know, a two or three-day rainfall event.
TOTH: Canada has raised its National Preparedness Level to 5, its highest level, a level it didn't reach last year until July. Part of the problem? Firefighting this year feels like a game of Whac-A-Mole.
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WAB KINEW: In typical fire seasons, you would have one region having a challenge.
TOTH: Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew also declared a state of emergency this week. Seventeen thousand people have been evacuated in Manitoba. He calls it the largest evacuation in living memory.
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KINEW: At a given time, it would be the east. It would be the north. It would be the west. This year, it's all the regions at the same time.
TOTH: The evacuation comes just two weeks after earlier fires in his province killed two people and forced a thousand others to escape. Rhonda Head is a classical singer from Opaskwayak Cree Nation. She's watched as people from further north drive through her community to Winnipeg, fleeing their homes.
RHONDA HEAD: When we went to go and check out the cars coming through, there was, like, long, like, hundreds and hundreds of cars going by. There's still a long line upcoming. Seeing that, it was really emotional 'cause it was like reality right in front of our eyes. And then the skies were really apocalyptic-looking yesterday. It was really scary.
TOTH: More than 40 fires in the three provinces are not contained as of last night. And two fires in Saskatchewan have recently become one, now a beast of more than 800 square miles. Now as winds blow south, smoke from those fires is billowing into the U.S. Midwest, with plumes expected to impact air quality in Milwaukee, Chicago and Detroit.
For NPR News, I'm Katie Toth in Halifax.
(SOUNDBITE OF ELUVIUM'S "AMREIK") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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