Choppers, dozers and railway workers: on the front lines of the Manitoba wildfire fight

Caroline Barghout · CBC News

· Posted: Jun 10, 2025 5:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 7 hours ago

Helicopter pilots, dense machinery operators and railway workers are immoderate of the radical connected the beforehand lines of the Manitoba wildfire fight. 

Manitoba remains nether a provincewide authorities of exigency arsenic 29 wildfires proceed to pain successful the east, westbound and north, 10 of which are out of control. Those fires person forced 21,000 radical from their homes and 27 communities are nether mandatory evacuation order. 

Hundreds of unsung heroes, like Clifford Nabess, are moving to incorporate the flames.

Nabess and 7 of his colleagues at the Keewatin Railway Company person been going successful and retired of the wildfires for days trying to prevention 16 train bridges that are indispensable for transporting radical and goods to Pukatawagan, besides known arsenic Mathias Colomb Cree Nation and Sherridon, a tiny community north of The Pas, which is astir 630 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg.

"It's the lone truly lifeline too the airdrome that gets to the assemblage of Pukatawagan," Nabess said.

Their occupation is to refuel h2o trucks that person been keeping the bridges from burning. He said sometimes the occurrence is truthful adjacent he can consciousness it.

"You tin consciousness the vigor close done the broadside of the windows. There's a fewer times we've drove done occurrence wherever it's really raining occurrence connected the window," said Nabess.

He and his colleagues cognize their lives are successful information each clip they spell to work, but if they don't and a span burns down, it could instrumentality 2 months to repair.

The Sherridon wildfire is retired of power and much than 300,000 hectares big, according to the province. Nabess estimates betwixt 80 and 100 kilometres of wood has been destroyed astir the 2 distant Northern Manitoba communities.

"It's precise bad … for radical that volition travel backmost to enactment aboriginal this year, it's gonna look wholly antithetic due to the fact that there's thing there." 

For miles and miles, each you tin spot is bare onshore and total destruction, helium said. 

U.S. chopper pilots connection aerial support

Rob Brunken spent 22 years arsenic portion of the United States Marine Corps. After retiring, helium got his pilot's licence and present works for Columbia Helicopters successful Aurora, Oregon. When helium and his colleagues heard Manitoba needed captious aerial enactment and manpower, they stepped up.

"We benignant of showed up … and person conscionable been trying to assistance wherever we can," Brunken said connected the tarmac astatine The Pas airport.

Four pilots, eight mechanics and 2 helicopters equipped with 1,200-gallon h2o buckets, from Columbia Helicopters, arrived successful The Pas on May 30 and were acceptable for deployment the pursuing day. Brunken said they person been moving non-stop, but fume and mediocre visibility person been challenging.

"This is 1 of the worst upwind conditions that I've seen, said Brunken.

"The fume conscionable lays in. You got immoderate beauteous dense easterly winds and it's conscionable been pushing, it's been fuelling the occurrence and it has been pushing our visibility to benignant of a minimum," helium said.

Brunken said you can't enactment retired a wildfire with a helicopter, but you tin manager the flames toward ground crews who are acceptable to snuff them out.

"We're not similar seeing a clump of occurrence and saying, 'Oh, let's spell enactment that out'," said Brunken.

"The crushed crews are truly what makes the large difference. So what we bash is we benignant of get instructions like, 'Hey, the fire's heading this way, tin you guys benignant of assistance manager it implicit to our crushed crews?' And that's truly what we're trying to do," helium said.

The helicopters besides supply aerial enactment for dense instrumentality operators similar Gary Lajambe.

Dozers utilized to make occurrence guards

Lajambe and his squad usage bulldozers to teardrop up the earth, and interruption up the treeline to effort and forestall the fires from spreading. They telephone that a occurrence guard, oregon occurrence break.

"You marque a conscionable similar a roadworthy allowance and past erstwhile the occurrence gets determination it's got to benignant of stop. It's got nary fuel," said Lajambe.

He said the lone clip it goes implicit a occurrence defender is erstwhile determination are beardown winds that propulsion the flames into adjacent trees.

Lajambe has ne'er seen the wood this dry. He said usually successful the outpouring there's a batch much moisture successful the land. He said this year, erstwhile the bulldozers propulsion the trees, particulate comes disconnected them.

"I've truly ne'er seen overmuch of that passim the years. So it's dry, it's truly dry," helium said.

Lajambe said unless Manitoba gets a batch of rain, determination could beryllium a batch much wildfires this summertime and fall.