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 and the first of its kind in the province, 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.

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The review also found that the agency’s polices were outdated, hard to find and sometimes not followed, “contributing to operating confusion and inconsistent decision-making during the response.”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

Marlo Pritchard, president of the public safety agency, said the organization did not wait for the review to come out before initiating changes ahead of this year’s wildfires. Pritchard said “a number of reviews” were completed after last year’s wildfire season and evacuation was a primary consideration.

“We started working on that process in October,” Pritchard told reporters on Friday. “We put a substantial amount of money and effort into that and staffing. We have upgraded our registration processes. We’re working across government and finance on how we can ensure supports are moved out the door quickly. We’re going to continue to enhance it.”

He said the agency is still working to implement some “obvious goals” in the area, but focused on improving evacuee registration processes to be “seamless.

“We are still working through it,” Pritchard shared, after noting the enhancements had been tested during the Lobstick Fire evacuations near Prince Albert.

“It worked better. We still are working through it, and we’re going to continue to enhance that,” he said.

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.

A list of “immediate actions” corresponding with each recommendation was also provided. Suggested high-priority tasks included a jurisdictional scan and organizational structure review “to adopt best-in-class emergency management wildfire response models in Saskatchewan,” enhancing clear and timely communication, establishing “community wildfire reservists” through partnering with local communities to train a new tier of firefighters and directing the SPSA to speed up evaluation and implementing advanced fire modelling and detection technologies for better “situational awareness” and more effective responses.

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.

Speaking to media on Friday, Minister of Community Safety Michael Weger called the effects of the 2025 wildfire season in Saskatchewan “unprecedented.

“Widespread losses included homes and cabins, displacing 1000s of people with widespread evacuations. Lives were disrupted, and livelihoods were impacted. It left extensive destruction to a number of our communities,” Weger said.

“After reading this 107 page review, it is clear the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency must do better. As the Minister responsible for the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency, I am here to tell you that I believe the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency can and will do better, and this will happen with the support of the Government of Saskatchewan and with guidance taken from this review.”

To those whose houses burned down last year, with SPSA policies still unchanged this year, Weger said the first action item – a jurisdictional scan reviewing the public safety agency’s structure and reviewing its process to address wildfires – is underway.

Weger agreed communication was a major concern in last year’s wildfire response, but pointed to this year’s Lobstick Fire, saying more regular SPSA updates have been given and that the Provincial Emergency Operations Centre was quickly established this year.

“We have plans to make it more robust and happen faster and have more community engagement and involvement as we, as disasters happen and emergencies come up, and the Provincial Emergency Operations Center has to be activated,” Weger said.

No price estimate was given for the cost of implementing the recommendations and action items recommended in the review, though Weger said some new full-time employees will likely be hired.

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.