Dene Tha' First Nation hopes to lift evacuation order this week, Chief says

Dene Tha' First Nation, in northwestern Alberta, has a re-entry plan for wildfire evacuees that it hopes to execute in the coming days, according to Chief Wilfred Hooka-Nooza.
The First Nation issued an evacuation order more than two weeks ago, on May 29, due to the Sousa Creek wildfire, which is burning several kilometres south of the community of Chateh, roughly 660 kilometres northwest of Edmonton.
The fire is still out of control as of Sunday afternoon, according to the Alberta Wildfire dashboard. But Hooka-Nooza told CBC News that the fire's boundary has been held five to eight kilometres from Chateh.
The First Nation developed a re-entry plan, which it had hoped to put into action Sunday, he said. But now the hope is to start returning people to the community Tuesday.
The plan is a phased approach that would strategically allow people home over a three-day period, with people who have respiratory health concerns arriving last, Hooka-Nooza said.
Wildfires forced thousands of Albertans from their homes earlier this month. But communities have recently lifted evacuation orders and alerts amid recent cool temperatures and rainy weather.
"It's been a welcome reprieve from the hot, dry conditions that we have seen previous to this, that did ignite and spread a lot of the fires that are burning across the province," Melissa Story, an Alberta Wildfire provincial information officer, told CBC News Sunday morning.
Alberta Wildfire reported 57 total active wildfires throughout the province as of 4 p.m. MT Sunday, about 40 per cent of which out of control, its dashboard shows.
Most of Alberta has a low or moderate fire danger, the dashboard shows. But some pockets, including the High Level Forest Area in northwestern Alberta, where the Sousa Creek fire is burning, still have an elevated risk.
The area hasn't had rainfall like the other regions, but there is some precipitation in the forecast this week, Story said.
"We'll have to wait and see what actually accumulates from it," she said.
Hooka-Nooza said the weather in other regions allowed more firefighting resources to be sent to the area.
Although the fire danger in most places has dropped, Story noted that there is still a lot of time left before wildfire season ends in October, and said the potential fire risk can change quickly based on the weather conditions.

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