The Town of Kapuskasing is now in charge of the evacuation of about 400 Fort Albany residents who are in the community due to a forest fire. Late last week, mayor Dave Plourde and town staff were notified by Indigenous Services Canada that Kap wouldn’t be part of the evacuation and that a third-party company would be in charge.
Plourde says it was a positive turn of events that happened in about a 24-hour period.
“They’re having a hard time there and they need assistance,” he said. “They just want everything to go smoothly so I assured them that the town of Kapuskasing would make sure that going forward everything would be taken care of the way we always have and we will continue to have dialogue with both communities.”
Plourde says future evacuations won’t be discussed with the federal government at this time.
“Right now we are just going to focus on the evacuation, making sure everything runs smoothly and goes as planned,” he said. “And I think any discussions that happen in the future will come when they do.”
According to the MNRF’s interactive forest fire guide, the blaze near Fort Albany is roughly 805 hectares or about 1,500 football fields…and listed as not under control.
