The Municipality of Red Lake continues to work with the provincial government to secure State of Emergency funding stemming from the August forest fire evacuation of the community.
Chief Administrative Officer Mark Vermette says right now they are sitting on $470,000 of expenses directly related to the evacuation.
Vermette expects that figure to balloon to over $750,000.
He is expecting a favourable response from the government.
“We are working with the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing through the Municipal Disaster Recovery Assistance Program. But there are some challenges with that program and the provincial government to date does recognize that.”
Vermette states the current program is meant for a planned evacuation.
He says in the 1980 fire emergency, the community had a couple of days to prepare to leave.
“Red 49. We had to evacuate ‘right now’. So we didn’t know where everyone was. So the program is more geared towards ‘This population is going to Thunder Bay. This population is going to Winnipeg or Dryden’. We had people scattered all over the place.”
Vermette says the order to leave was sudden but the entire area was more then willing to help out.
“Great support by our neighbouring communities. We’re very thankful for that. Tourism outfitters really stepped up to the plate. Those outfitters just outside our borders, extending into Dryden and Kenora, of course the Highway 105 corridor.”
