Coming home after nearly month-long wildfire evacuation ‘made me feel kind of whole,’ says Bunibonibee woman
Residents forced to evacuate Bunibonibee Cree Nation earlier this summer have now all returned home, almost a month after an out-of-control wildfire prompted a full-scale evacuation of the northeastern Manitoba community.
A slew of flights, including military Hercules planes, took thousands of residents from the community, formerly known as Oxford House, starting on Aug. 14. In the three days following, many ended up in hotels in Winnipeg, almost 600 kilometres to the south, and in Brandon.
The wildfire grew rapidly over a matter of days in mid-August, eventually covering 11,518 hectares (almost 30,000 acres) and getting as close as 10 kilometres to the southeast of the community.
But more than three weeks after the wildfire ignited, firefighters managed to bring it under control, and days later, the province gave the green light to Bunibonibee Cree Nation for the return of evacuees.
The first scheduled aircraft started to bring residents back on Aug. 31, the Canadian Red Cross told CBC News in a statement. All of the more than 2,400 community members registered with the organization had returned to the community by earlier this week.
Stacy Robinson and her three children, ages seven, eight and 12, were among the first evacuees to return, on a small passenger flight from Winnipeg more than a week ago.
“I’m really glad that nobody got hurt. Everybody’s home now and it makes me feel really happy,” she said.
“Coming home made me feel kind of whole.”
‘Terrified for my family’
As the fire approached the community last month, Robinson and her family waited for two days before boarding one of the last military Hercules planes flying out of Bunibonibee.
Over that time, people crammed outside the airport, frustrated and desperate to get in the next flight, she said. But with the community prioritizing elders and residents with respiratory issues for evacuation, many had to wait for hours or days, just like her.
“It saddened me — you had kids crying because they were tired,” she said. “It was really hot, and people were getting dehydrated.”
The plume of smoke emanating from the wildfire covered the sky, looking almost like the cloud of smoke right after a huge explosion, Robinson said. At night, an orange glow from the flames lit up the community.
“I was terrified for my family. Looking at my children, I wanted them to be safe,” she said. “It was an intense moment.”
Robinson and her family were in Winnipeg for just over two weeks, spending their first night sleeping in the University of Winnipeg’s gym with dozens of others, before they were assigned to a hotel room in the city.
Updates from the province on the wildfire situation were posted almost every evening by Bunibonibee’s chief on social media, but for Robinson, there was a lingering fear, as she worried about what could happen if the flames reached the community.
“It was really overwhelming,” she said. “It’s a beautiful community, and I’m pretty sure a lot of people felt the same.… They wanted to come back home to the community they left.”
Robinson said there was no damage to buildings in Bunibonibee, but the wildfire left a trail of destruction that was obvious when looking out of the window of the plane as she flew back home.
“It was a lot of land that was burned — the ground was really dark, and it was really sad to see,” she said.
Robison went back to work the day after her return, helping others to clean up the community and get a station at the local community centre ready to welcome back other residents.
Now, life in Bunibonibee Cree Nation has returned to “some sense of normalcy,” she said.
“I wasn’t really surprised our community would be back up together like this.”
Residents in five other First Nations in northern Manitoba were given evacuation orders this summer, though most saw only partial evacuations. Marcel Colomb First Nation was the only other community in the province where all residents were told to leave.
The Canadian Red Cross said this week it is not currently supporting any Manitoba First Nation wildfire evacuees, as all residents it was working with have returned to their communities.
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