The provincial government will provide $500 for all adult wildfire evacuees to help cover their expenses.
The announcement was made by Premier Scott Moe Wednesday morning in Saskatoon.
The money will flow through local tribal councils or municipalities to those forced to leave their homes by evacuation order. This is in addition to the increased financial assistance for evacuees announced on Saturday provided to evacuees who have registered with the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency.
A significant percentage of wildfire evacuees will be able to return home tomorrow morning when the evacuation order for La Ronge, Air Ronge and the Lac la Ronge Indian Band is lifted.
The Premier admitted there have been bottle necks in the system, but the SPSA has worked to address evacuee concerns in a timely manner.
The Premier did respond to the provincial ombudsman, Sharon Pratchler, announcing her intention to conduct an investigation into the province’s wildfire response. Premier Moe said he heard from evacuees on the matter and how they want more flexibility with how they use the funds to support themselves. Moe says the evacuees have told him there needs to be more support and more prompt response in the funding being available.
In response to the on-going criticism of not accepting help from the military while Manitoba did, the Premier said air support to the community was provided to the other province that had no ground access; however, Saskatchewan didn’t need that because evacuations were able to be done with ground access.
The Premier also added the type 3 firefighters have been largely provided through partnerships over the last number of years. He said with more positive weather occurring, there will be a need for more type 3 fire fighters so there is going to be more re-certification camps and more type 3 fire fighters will be largely Northern and Indigenous residents as opposed to the military, which is a little bit unique to Saskatchewan.
Premier Moe also spoke out about the recent warning to the public about a troubling new scam targeting wildfire evacuees. Some evacuees are receiving spam emails and texts that falsely claim to be from the Canadian Red Cross, asking recipients to provide banking details under the pretense of processing emergency payments.
“Well first off, I would say to the people that are making the call, you’re the lowest form of life that is in existence today, and I always look for the good in people than God has put breath into, and this is not it. Taking advantage of people in what is an extremely vulnerable situation, Hell hath no place hot enough for them. Secondly, families who have been evacuated need to be diligent and if they think they are the target of something of this nature to contact the RCMP immediately.”
