Some Cloverdale fire evacuees in Prince Albert area allowed to return home

Evacuees in the City of Prince Albert and the RM of Buckland have been allowed to return home, but should be prepared to leave on short notice if conditions change, the City of P.A. said in a media release.

Evacuees from the RM of Garden River are not allowed to return at this time.

Kim Morrall, who was evacuated Monday, said she was very happy to receive the phone call confirming she could return home.

“It’s three days of not knowing what’s going on and how long it’s going to be and so we are very relieved,” she said.

Morrall said if the experience has taught her one thing — always be be prepared.

Ashlee Schmidt and her young son have also received the green light to return home.

“We are not really too sure what we are going home to, but definitely [it’s] a huge sense of relief,” she said.

Schmidt has been staying with family since being forced to evacuate on Monday.

“We left with literally the shirts on our backs and had to go buy everything new, but had really great support from friends and family and we are very thankful for that,” she said.

Services being restored

SaskPower anticipates power will be back on between 6 and 8 p.m. for those who have been in the dark since Monday. Anyone running a generator should turn it off before then.

Thousands of customers were impacted by the outage Monday, which included the Paddockwood, Christopher Lake, Meath Park, La Ronge and Stanley Mission areas.

SaskPower spokesperson Joel Cherry said crews have been working around the clock to restore power to 8,000 homes north of P.A.

Cherry said they made some progress on the transmission line Wednesday.

“However, we have experienced some equipment issues as we have had to contend with some extremely difficult boggy terrain around some of the structures, and we have had some track machines get stuck,” he said.

Highway 55 is also set to be reopened at 5 p.m. with a 60 km speed limit to allow for emergency personnel still working in the area to work safely, the City of Prince Albert said. Motorists are advised that there is smoke in the area and reduced visibility in spots.

SaskTel services have also been restored.

Fire still burning

Speaking Thursday, Vice President of Operations for the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency (SPSA), Steve Roberts, told reporters the fire was mapped Wednesday night at 5,583 hectares, but has not grown in last 24 hours and is not expected to grow any further.

Roberts said crews will continue to do extinguishments within the fire zone, working on areas where there are accumulations of fuel still burning.

For a fire of this size, it will be matter of “weeks, not days” before it is completely extinguished, said Roberts.