Community heroes protect Wadin Bay from devastating wildfires

It’s the type of heroic story usually only seen in the movies, but for a group of 20 people in Wadin Bay, north of La Ronge, it’s reality.

Wadin Bay is home to 30 residents, but in cottage season — they can spike upwards of 230.

As 10 residents began to leave due to the threat from wildfires, a small group of people decided to stay and fight the fire. Against the odds, they were successful and the only building that was lost to the flames was a single shed.

“Nobody was required to stay. There was no pressure to stay,” said Kennedy Bonneau, one of the Wadin Bay residents who stayed to fight the fire.

“As soon as we knew that everything hit the fan, we got together and made a plan.”

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Firefighting efforts began last Monday when a mandatory evacuation order was issued for the community due to the threatening wildfires closing in.

Bonneau said it was amazing to see the community come together.

“Everyone puts differences aside to work at one job with one common goal,” she said. “It’s been absolutely amazing to just see everyone rally together and protect what’s important to us.”

Bonneau said it was an all-hands-on-deck situation, with people doing everything they could to stop the fires. She said the group set up sprinkler systems to keep the flames at bay.

“We also had fire pumps, fire hoses, we had (people) maintaining our pumps,” she said.

“Some people were just carrying around sacks of water to put out little hot spots.”

While it’s been a job well done so far, Bonneau said the group isn’t putting away the hoses just yet.

“I would say we’re all still pretty on edge. We don’t think the worst of it’s over,” she said.

“We don’t want to put our guard down and assume that the worst is behind us, but we’re all feeling really good about our efforts.”

When the group did finally get some rest on Friday, Bonneau said the conditions were still not very favourable.

“It is very, very smoky. We have next to no visibility,” she said. “(Friday’s) the first day we can all take a deep breath and relax a little bit.”

Photo of Kerry Wisser in Wadin Bay (Kerry Wisser/Submitted)

Bonneau said the group is keeping busy with preparations in case they should need to fight the fire again.

“We’re continuing to put up more sprinklers as they become available to us,” she said. “The biggest thing that we’re kind of managing right now is the power loss. We’ve been told it could be two weeks without power still.”

Bonneau said they are managing generators and making sure everyone has lots of water to drink.

The Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency did have fire crews in the area also battling the fires and Bonneau said most of the people who stayed back have experience in first responder roles.

“There’s also quite a few of us here who are trained firefighters,” she said. “I’m a trained paramedic as well.”

Bonneau wasn’t in Wadin Bay in 2015, but said residents worked to keep the community safe that year when it was threatened by wildfires.

“The community came together in 2015 and did the same thing,” she said. “I wasn’t surprised at all to see the commitment of our community to stay and protect it.”