The local fire department is asking every home in Upsala to send someone to an emergency meeting Wednesday at 7:00 p.m. CDT
The meeting will be held at the community hall. The Upsala Fire Department asked that “at least one representative from each household attend.”
“Although the winds were from the north yesterday and helped protect us, the overall fire situation has escalated dramatically in the last 24 hours. Fires have doubled in size over night. Including ours,” said the fire department in a social media post Wednesday morning.
“If the winds change direction we would need to immediately evacuate. Please get your essentials together and be ready to run.”
It continues that “Our fire is too large to fight even if MNR had resources which they don’t. They will be sending contracted crews out to do some value protections.”
Value protections could mean setting up sprinklers to help protect buildings, the fire department explains.
Upsala is currently being told to prepare for evacuation, but is not yet under a mandatory evacuation order.
One of the larger wildfires in the region, Fort Frances 14 was mapped at 55,106 hectares as of the last update to the Ministry of Natural Resources’ Forest Fire Info Map.
That's more than twice the size it was mapped at that morning, when Ontario Forest Fires posted on social media that that same fire was 18,102 hectares
“An Incident Management Team is being mobilized today to help manage active fires in the Fort Frances fire management area,” stated the MNR in a Wednesday afternoon update.
The fire is listed as not-under-control on the MNR’s fire map.
Further, Hydro One's outage map shows that about 95 customers between Upsala and Lac des Milles Lacs were being affected by an outage that is currently under investigation.
Newswatch has reached out to the Upsala Fire Department for further comment.
In an emailed statement to Newswatch, the Ministry of Natural Resources said contract crews are assisting with values protection around Lac de Mille Lac, Cushing Lake, and Shebandowan, adding that an incident management team is active in the Upsala and Atikokan area.
"Firefighter safety is our top priority," fire information officer Victoria Lee said. "As conditions change, crews may be repositioned or temporarily withdrawn from certain areas when fire behaviour, visibility or other operational factors create safety concerns. These decisions are part of standard wildfire suppression operations."
She added that the ministry's firefighting efforts continue to be on "priority areas where fire suppression efforts are most likely to be successful," with prioritization of protecting wildland firefighting personnel and public safety, "critical infrastructure" as well as, where possible, dealing with new fires.
Wildland fire protection plans are being used to guide efforts to lessen the threats to communities at the greatest risk of impact from the fires, Lee said, including identifying key infrastructure, and helping to "prioritize efforts for community protection during a wildland fire emergency."