In the midst of recent extreme temperatures and high winds, out of control wildfires are now moving through some parts of eastern Manitoba where cottages and campgrounds abound.

Out of an abundance of caution, the province has decided to close Whiteshell Provincial Park as of 9:00 a.m. on Thursday, May 15. This includes all public and private areas. Park users, including full-time residents, are being asked to leave the park by 1:00 p.m. on Thursday.

Threatening the Whiteshell region is a 20,000-hectare fire on the Ontario side of the border near Ingolf.

A wildfire update was delivered this morning by the assistant Kristin Hayward, deputy minister of Manitoba Wildfire Services.

According to Hayward, a new fire burns over 3,000 hectares of land near Lac du Bonnet.

“This fire was started yesterday,” Hayward says. “We’ve had a lot of response on the fire, [but] it’s still considered out of control.”

Another active fire burns near Bird River close to Nopiming Provincial Park.

“This is a very large fire last mapped at close to 100,000 hectares,” she says. “What we saw… yesterday was extremely volatile fire behaviour. It isn’t even safe to be actioning a fire of that volatility, so the decision was made for us to focus on Lac du Bonnet where it was safer for us to respond and there was obviously a public safety risk that we wanted to address.”

A little further south, a fire continues to burn near Badger, in the RM of Piney.

In western Manitoba, a fire has been burning for some time near The Pas. Hayward says they have been making significant progress in getting this one under control.

All together there are 24 active fires burning in Manitoba and six of those fires are requiring a significant firefighter response. According to Hayward, it’s early in the season to see this level of fire activity.

Based on upcoming forecasts, Mother Nature may not provide much help. Hot, dry conditions are expected to persist for the next couple of days. Some precipitation is anticipated soon, but Hayward says it won’t be near enough to alleviate the situation.

What it would take is a stretch of days with lower temperatures and a couple of inches of rain spread out over a few days to keep humidity levels high.

Christine Stevens is the assistant deputy minister of the Manitoba Emergency Management Organization. She says that mandatory evacuation orders are now in place in five provincial parks, three local authorities, three Northern Affairs communities, and 24 cottage subdivisions.

In some of these areas, cottagers or residents have been given as little as two hours to evacuate.

A total of six states of local emergency have been declared.

“The message we want to send out to Manitobans today is, if you do not need to be in the parks, and if you do not need to be in the areas where first responders need to access, we’re asking you to stay away,” says Stevens. “Staff need space in order to respond to this event. We’re very much in a live response type of situation where we’re working to protect people, critical infrastructure, and property.”

For those who live or cottage in areas not directly impacted by an evacuation notice, Stevens asks that they stay alert and monitor communications from the local authorities for further direction.