Review finds Sask. Public Safety Agency ‘was not fully prepared’ for 2025 wildfire season

An independent review into the Government of Saskatchewan’s response to the destructive 2025 wildfire season – the worst in Saskatchewan’s history – found the province’s public safety agency wasn’t adequately prepared.

The review, completed by accounting firm MNP, was made public on Friday. The report found “significant gaps” in the province’s wildfire and emergency preparedness, as well as the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency’s (SPSA) prevention and mitigation efforts.

Read more:

• Feds planning evacuation centres in advance of wildfire season
• Senate committee report calls for better co-ordination of wildfire response
• Provincial fire ban lifted as wildfire conditions improve: Sask. Public Safety Agency

“While the SPSA had some foundational planning and structures, it was not fully prepared for a wildfire season of the scale and complexity seen in 2025,” the report read.

“Findings point to the need for a more risk- and science-informed prevention and mitigation framework that is grounded in accumulated wildfire risk and supported by sufficient capacity and inter-agency coordination. More consistent readiness is also required through earlier workforce planning, training, contracting, and pre-season exercises.”

The review was critical of the Provincial Emergency Operations Centre, which was responsible for co-ordinating the wildfire response across the province.

MNP found the centre’s mandate was confused by the fact the agency was operating a provincial response centre at the same time, “resulting in limited tasking, uneven situational awareness, and inconsistent information flow. These gaps demonstrate that core elements of the province’s emergency management system were not effectively executed.”

The review also found that the agency’s polices were outdated, hard to find and sometimes not followed, “contributing to operating confusion and inconsistent decision-making during the response.”

Issues with the response continued even after the fires were extinguished, the report indicated.

“Recovery similarly emerged as an area for growth: the absence of a clearly articulated provincial recovery strategy created uncertainty for communities and partners as operations transitioned from response to longer term rebuilding and support, contributing to ad hoc and inconsistent recovery efforts,” MNP wrote in its review.

‘Significant gaps’ in wildfire and emergency preparedness

When it came to emergency response and wildfire preparedness, called a “proactive process to plan, train and position resources effectively to respond to an incident,” the report found that “while the SPSA had some foundational planning and structures, it was not fully prepared for a wildfire season of the scale and complexity seen in 2025.”

The report said establishing the SPSA as a joint emergency management and wildfire operations agency “does not appear to have been supported by an effective rollout or implementation framework, negatively impacting the consistency and effectiveness of the province’s wildfire and emergency management program.”

Legacy systems, unclear and overlapping mandates across various pieces of legislation and siloed operations were blamed for creating staff uncertainty about roles, responsibilities and the authority to make decisions. Though internal policies were in place, they were identified as hard to access, applied inconsistently and outdated.

“Preparedness was further limited by insufficient pre-season planning, including delayed recruitment, training, and equipment procurement.”

Wildfire and emergency response concerning

Another key finding of the review stated there was “limited evidence” that the public safety agency’s wildfire response “aligned with established procedures, and in may areas did not meet the expectations set out in Saskatchewan’s emergency management framework.”

The Provincial Emergency Operations Centre, the province’s central coordination hub, was said to have been activated but “not operated as a fully-functional coordination centre.”

Though there were foundational structures for operation, staff reported outdated internal policies that were hard to find or not followed, which added to confusion and inconsistent decisions made during the wildfire response. The organization also did not implement formal command structures and key emergency management principles.

Evacuation processes ‘inconsistent,’ ‘delayed’

“There is limited evidence that evacuation activities during the 2025 Wildfire Season were aligned with the established roles and responsibilities of the SPSA and its partners,” the report stated.

It cited inconsistent and often delayed processes for issuing alerts and evacuation orders, lacking “standardized triggers” communities expected from them.

“As a result, host communities frequently received little notice of incoming evacuees, leaving communities underprepared and forced into reactive decision-making.

“These breakdowns in coordination, combined with unclear roles between the SPSA and partner agencies, created uncertainty, strained local capacity, and weakened confidence in the SPSA’s ability to provide timely, consistent evacuation leadership.”

Recommendations, immediate action outlined

The review included 11 recommendations, including a full review of the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency’s structure, stronger emergency management co-ordination, improved integration and co-ordination between the agency and communities, as well as other government bodies, and better fire behaviour modelling and risk mapping so that resources can be deployed more efficiently.

Other recommendations included better equipment management and recovery, proactive procurement and contracting ahead of the wildfire season, implementing planning and training schedules for workers ahead of the fire season, and to hold “consistent and structured after-action reviews” in order to foster continuous improvement.

According to the provincial government, the review was commissioned in October after a fire season that burned huge tracts of land and destroyed numerous homes and buildings.

“The 2025 wildfire season was the worst in Saskatchewan’s history, with more than 500 fires burning nearly three million hectares, and over 10,000 people evacuated from more than 50 communities. Through it all, we saw Saskatchewan people come together to support their communities,” Michael Weger, the minister responsible for the SPSA, said in a statement.

“This independent review was developed based on the experiences shared by individuals directly affected by the 2025 wildfire season and provides our government with clear recommendations to ensure that the lessons learned from last year’s wildfire season are actioned to protect Saskatchewan people now and into the future.”

The province said the public safety agency has been directed to implement all 11 recommendations from the review “immediately,” and a special unit has been established to advance and monitor the progress as the recommendations are acted on.

The government said it is also establishing the FireSmart Grant Program, with Wadin Bay set to receive the first $40,000 grant under the program for the costs associated with its fire mitigation efforts.

So far this season, Saskatchewan has seen 111 wildfires, well below the five-year average of 185. By the same point in 2025, the province had already recorded 253 fires.

The full report can be read below.

More to come.