LIVE @ 1:30: Sask. to provide wildfire response update

Volunteer firefighters from Davidson, Sask., load up their truck at the Provincial Wildfire Center in Prince Albert, Sask., Wednesday, June 4, 2025. The fire fighters are on their way to Weyakwin. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Liam Richards
The Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency (SPSA) will be providing another update regarding the province's wildfire response Wednesday afternoon at 1:30.
The update can be watched live at the top of this article.
On Tuesday, the SPSA said that all evacuations had ended except for five communities. Creighton, Denare Beach, East Trout Lake, Whelan Bay and priority individuals in Cumberland House remain evacuated.
As of 10:30 Wednesday morning, the SPSA's website said 16 wildfires were burning in the province with three not contained.
So far in 2025, the province has seen 261 wildfires, well above the five-year average of 157.
The SPSA has confirmed that 350 values have been lost, with the number expected to climb past 500 once more assessments are completed.
On Wednesday morning Saskatchewan's Minister of Corrections, Policing and Public Safety Tim McLeod said that as many as 30 individuals are currently suspected of intentional arson regarding wildfires, adding that more charges are expected to be laid.
The SPSA has said that the majority of wildfires this season have been accidentally started by humans, but that at least 30 were believed to have been ste intentionally.
RCMP have charged two individuals with arson regarding the Ditch02 fire near Weyakwin.
More to come…

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Global News

20 minutes ago

• Global News

What secrets did Calgary serial killer Gary Srery take to the grave?

Over the course of a year in the late 1970s, Calgarians woke up to horrifying headlines splashed across newspaper front pages. In just over 12 months, four young women's lives were extinguished under mysterious circumstances. Friends Eva Dvorak and Patsy McQueen, both 14, were found dead on the side of the Trans-Canada highway west of Calgary on Feb. 15, 1976. The body of Melissa Rehorek, 20, was found in a ditch on a quiet gravel road 22 km west of the city seven months later. And in February of 1977, the body of Barbara MacLean, 19, was discovered by a dog walker just outside the city's northeast quadrant. For years, despite evidence, interviews and autopsies, the explanations into all four deaths were scant. The cause of death for McQueen and Dvorak, who had been sent home the day they died after being caught drinking at their junior high school, was listed as undetermined. Autopsies revealed the pair had drugs and alcohol in their systems when they died, but their deaths were never ruled as murder. Story continues below advertisement Rehorek and MacLean's deaths showed similarities, leading investigators to believe they might have been victims of a single killer, but a suspect was never identified. For decades, the families and friend of each young woman waited for more information, for the cold cases to run hot. As the years ticked by, hope diminished. View image in full screen The photos of Eva Dvorak, 14, Patricia McQueen, 14, Melissa Rehorek, 20, and Barbara MacLean, 19, are displayed at a police press conference. Shane Struck / Global News Almost half a century later, in 2024, the RCMP released a bombshell press release. 'American believed to be serial killer behind deaths of 4 young Calgarians,' read Global News' headline on May 17, 2024, as police announced a break in not one, but all four cases. At a news conference in Edmonton, police announced that all four young women were victims of a serial killer by the name of Gary Srery — an American citizen living in Canada illegally at the time of the homicides. Story continues below advertisement Police said ahead of each of the four victims' deaths, they had been walking in the evening. All four died of asphyxiation and their bodies were left outside of Calgary's city limits. In each case, seminal fluid was found on the victims but police noted that at the time of their deaths there was no way to test for a DNA profile of a suspect. View image in full screen The underpass where the bodies of Patsy McQueen and Eva Dvorak were discovered. File photo / Global News Now, Global's true crime offering, Crime Beat, is looking back on the case, with exclusive interviews from the detectives who helped link the crimes, never-before-heard details from one of the victim's sisters and a jaw-dropping interview with the serial killer's own son, who provides insight into how his father became a serial killer — and the reasons he believes his dad is responsible for the death of another young Alberta woman. On May 17, 2024, the RCMP said Gary Srery was responsible for the deaths of four young Calgarians. Supplied by RCMP Keep reading to learn more about Srery, how advances in forensic technology helped link the Calgary murders and why investigators think he may be connected to additional murders and sexual assaults. Story continues below advertisement Who is Gary Srery? Gary Allen Srery was born in Illinois in 1942, the first of three siblings, and moved with his family to California in the mid-1950s. Get daily National news Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day. Sign up for daily National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy While little is known about his formative years, by the 1960s he began to rack up an extensive rap sheet, particularly for violent and sexual offences, starting with a forcible rape conviction in 1965. He faced additional charges of kidnapping, sexual perversion and burglary around that time, leading to the State of California to classify him as a 'mentally disordered sex offender,' and he was committed to a mental health facility. In and out of incarceration, the next few years saw Srery rack up additional charges, including rape, drug possession, kidnapping and sodomy. Gary Srery is shown in an undated photo. Handout / RCMP In 1974, Srery attacked a female hitchhiker in the San Fernando Valley in California, and, attempting to escape the Los Angeles rape charge, he crossed into Canada illegally. Story continues below advertisement He was a bit of a chameleon, ever-changing his appearance, his vehicles and his aliases. Once in Canada he became an under-the-table drifter, working as a salesman or in kitchens in Southern Alberta and B.C., and staying off the radar of police. He often used the names 'Willy Blackman' and 'Rex Long.' View image in full screen Gary Srery often changed his looks, vehicles and aliases. Handout / Alberta RCMP Srery's deception worked. It wasn't until his 1998 arrest in New Westminster, B.C., for a violent sexual assault, that his crimes north of the border caught up with him. Following a five-year sentence in Canadian prison, he was deported back to the U.S. in 2003. A trickle of tips and leads With Srery back in the U.S., investigators continued to pick away at the cold cases. In 2003, taking advantage of advancements in forensic technology, evidence from Rehorek and MacLean's crime scenes were sent in for DNA testing and confirmed what police suspected all along — seminal DNA found on their clothing matched a single, unknown offender. Story continues below advertisement It was almost another 20 years, in the fall of 2022, when Dvorak's sister, Anita Vukovich-Kohut, learned that the case of the two junior high students had been reopened after she called police to check in on the case. 'I don't know what the trigger was that got [police] to start looking into it,' she told Crime Beat, 'but when I asked about it they had already begun the process.' View image in full screen Anita Vukovich-Kohut was surprised to learn her sister's case had been reopened. Crime Beat / Global News RCMP told Crime Beat that two months before receiving Vukovich-Kohut's call, they had received a tip that spurred further investigation: an inmate had found McQueen's name in the notes of another inmate. While the tip turned out to be a dead end, the investigator handling the case realized there were exhibits in the McQueen and Dvorak case that hadn't been tested using new DNA technology. Story continues below advertisement While waiting for the results of the testing to come back, and inspired by the capture of the Golden State Killer using investigative genetic genealogy (IGG), police, in partnership with the RCMP, reopened the cases of Rehorek and MacLean. When they uploaded the DNA samples from the cases into the genetic genealogy databank, it spit back a family tree of more than 6,400 people related to the unknown offender, dating back to the early 1700s. Within months, they narrowed down their search to a small group of brothers. One of the siblings, Gary Srery, had already made headlines about being a serial rapist, giving investigators their No. 1 suspect. Meanwhile, police were able to link Srery to the Calgary area during the time of the four murders, and reviewed the cases of eight other women who survived attacks by Srery, painting a picture of how the suspected serial killer moved and operated. When the DNA results came back, police were finally able to confirm that Srery had violently raped and murdered all four young women. View image in full screen Left to right: Calgary serial killer victims Melissa Rehorek, 20, Patricia 'Patsy' McQueen, 14, Eva Dvorak, 14, and Barbara MacLean, 19. Alberta RCMP Are there other Canadian victims? While the families of each Calgary victim say they were relieved to finally have some closure, Srery was long dead, having died from natural causes in an Idaho prison in 2011 while serving a life sentence for another violent rape. Story continues below advertisement Investigators say he's likely responsible for other unsolved murders, but his death means there's a good chance Srery took secrets of other committed crimes to the grave. Even his son, Richard, believes there are other crimes at the hands of his dad that are waiting to be uncovered. View image in full screen Gary Srery's son, Richard, told Crime Beat in an exclusive interview that he believes his dad is responsible for more crimes. Crime Beat 'He is one of the most charismatic, convincing, intellectual people I have ever actually ever encountered,' he told Crime Beat in an exclusive interview, explaining he believes his dad used his smarts and social skills to prey on his victims. 'I can't help thinking, even to this day, how many do we not know about?' 0:33 Gary Srery's son speaks out about his father's crimes The case of Kelly Cook One of the unsolved cases he believes is connected to his dad, said Richard, is the mysterious 1981 kidnapping and murder of a 15-year-old girl in rural Alberta. Story continues below advertisement Revealing a letter written to him by his father from prison, Richard said the note mentioned several aliases Srery had used in the past, including the name 'Bill Christensen.' Bill Christensen was also the name used by a man in Standard, Alta., 70 km north of Calgary, who called up an unsuspecting teenager by the name of Kelly Cook, luring her to her death under the guise of a babysitting job. View image in full screen Kelly Cook disappeared from her home in Alberta in 1981, in one of the highest profile cases in the province's history. File / Global News Two months later, Cook's body was found in the Chin Lake Reservoir, east of Lethbridge, tied up with ropes and anchored by concrete blocks. Years later, anticipating a visit from RCMP to his home in the U.S. to talk about cases linked to his father, Richard said he had stumbled across Cook's case in another Crime Beat episode: The Case of Kelly Cook: The Backup Babysitter. Story continues below advertisement 'I was convinced from watching it, this is him, this is the (case) they're going to talk to me about,' he said. 'He lived there, the aliases…everything about it just adds up.' Surprised when Cook's case didn't come up in their conversation, Richard said he brought it up with the investigators, who quickly shot him down, saying they didn't have a connection between the case and his dad. The RCMP claims there's no mention of the alias Bill Christensen in Srery's file, nor evidence that connects him to Cook's death. — Crime Beat airs its penultimate episode of the season at 10 p.m. ET on Global, examining a series of serial killings in Calgary in the 1970s and how the man responsible, Gary Srery, might have had more victims. Check your local listings for airtimes. Episodes appear streaming and on the StackTV app the following day. Story continues below advertisement — Global News and Global TV are both properties of Corus Entertainment.

CTV News

29 minutes ago

• CTV News

Body found in Sault Ste. Marie apartment, homicide investigation underway

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CBC

33 minutes ago

• CBC

Edmonton extortion scheme linked to notorious B.C. gang, court records show

Social Sharing An extortion scheme that targeted South Asian homebuilders in Edmonton is linked to the B.C.-based gang Brothers Keepers, court records obtained by CBC News show. One of the men charged in the Project Gaslight investigation pleaded guilty last month. The agreed facts of the case offer the first detailed look at the apparent network behind threats and arsons that terrified business owners for months. They also reveal that Harpreet Uppal — the man killed alongside his 11-year-old son in a 2023 shooting — was part of the extortion plot. The agreed statement of facts says Uppal was a member of Brothers Keepers, which B.C. RCMP have described as a "prominent and violent gang." He was also a "close associate" of Maninder Dhaliwal, the man accused of orchestrating extortions and arsons from abroad. The Edmonton Police Service (EPS) arrested several alleged members of the group running the extortion scheme in July 2024. Among them was 19-year-old Divnoor Singh Asht, who pleaded guilty on May 23 to three of the seven charges he faced: arson, extortion and conspiring to commit extortion. Asht admitted he was one of the people responsible for "assembling and instructing the lower members of the group to carry out the extortion and related arsons. These actions were based on the direction and instruction of Maninder Dhaliwal and Harpreet Uppal, prior to his death." Asht was sentenced to 4½ years in prison. With credit for pre-sentence custody, he has a little more than three years left to serve. The agreed facts say some in the group were members of Brothers Keepers, but there's no evidence that Asht was one of them. The others who were arrested — Gurkaran Singh, Manav Heer, Parminder Singh and a 17-year-old boy who can't be named under the Youth Criminal Justice Act — are still before the courts. The charges against them haven't been proven. A 19-year-old woman was also arrested in the Project Gaslight investigation, but court records show the charges against her were stayed in March. Dhaliwal was arrested in the United Arab Emirates late last year on separate charges. He has yet to be prosecuted. An extradition request remains in effect to send him back to Canada. Court documents cite Canada Border Services Agency records that indicate Dhaliwal left the country for India in July 2023, but he's believed to have largely directed the extortions from Dubai, in the Emirates. Uppal, 41, was killed at a south Edmonton gas station on the afternoon of Nov. 10, 2023. At the time, EPS investigators said he was known as someone "high up" in the world of gangs and drugs. EPS acting Supt. Colin Derksen said at the time that Uppal's young son was also intentionally killed, calling the violence "sick and twisted." No one has been charged in their deaths. WATCH: Boy deliberately killed in gang shooting, police say: 11-year-old deliberately killed in gang shooting, Edmonton police say 2 years ago Duration 2:30 Edmonton police say that an 11-year-old boy was deliberately killed in a daylight shooting on Thursday that also killed his father, Harpreet Uppal. Police said the shooting was gang related. Court records say that, before Uppal was killed, he was involved in the early days of a scheme where successful Edmonton developers received calls and messages demanding large sums of money. If they didn't pay, they saw their properties go up in flames. In some cases, there was gunfire outside their own homes. In Ontario and B.C., a similar pattern of extortion and violence targeting South Asian business owners also began in 2023. The RCMP set up a national team earlier this year to co-ordinate investigations into the extortion schemes, which police say are connected and, in some cases, linked to organized crime. Wiretap and recorded remand centre calls According to the agreed statement of facts in Asht's case, the Project Gaslight investigation involved a wiretap, hundreds of hours of recorded Edmonton Remand Centre calls and the seizure of dozens of digital devices. Asht is described as one of the "middle managers" in the group who took instructions from higher ranks, assigned tasks to lower-level members and reported progress back up the chain. He didn't directly make threats against the homebuilders, but he was aware of them. Below Asht were Heer and the youth, who were "largely, but not exclusively, the group's principal arsonists," the agreed facts say. Asht didn't personally start any of the fires, but his role involved "encouraging and instructing" those who did. He also sometimes scouted locations of possible arson targets and gathered proof that the job was done. In October 2023, the group began targeting two homebuilders who are business associates. CBC News is not naming the pair because one has expressed fears for his safety if his name were publicly disclosed. The court document says one man received a call over WhatsApp from someone telling him that he and his family would be killed unless he paid $500,000. The other started getting calls linked to the same WhatsApp account, but didn't answer. A series of deliberately set fires targeting one of the builder's properties began a few weeks later, completely destroying two fully built homes. WATCH | Extortions orchestrated from India, EPS says: Police say Edmonton area extortions targeting home builders orchestrated from India 1 year ago Duration 2:27 Edmonton police are investigating 27 events in an ongoing extortion, arson and firearms series affecting the South Asian community in the region. An estimated $9 million in property damage has been reported from the arson and shootings. After the first fire on Nov. 6, 2023, Asht sent Uppal a picture of smoke and emergency vehicles outside the property as proof that the arson was carried out. Two subsequent attempted arsons were thwarted by private security. But in one incident, a security guard keeping watch over several properties in the Aster neighbourhood was attacked by a group of three people wielding a hammer and an airsoft gun. The agreed facts describe recorded conversations from that time between Asht and Parminder Singh, who's identified as a "high-ranking member" of the group. Singh was in the Edmonton Remand Centre after being charged in an Oct. 19, 2023, shooting outside a developer's home. In a call recorded from the jail, Asht discussed getting money from one of the homebuilders being targeted. He said he thinks it will work against the other one because "he's scared" and while he has "extra protection now … we will take care of his extra protection too." Singh told Asht to "take that money from him." Asht responded, "We have been trying. It's up to him when he would give us the money." In another call on Dec. 1, 2023, Asht told Singh, "He is giving the money today." Arsons then began at properties owned by a different homebuilder. Threats of arson, gunfire The court document describes how developer Kulwinder Toor, with Active Homes, started receiving WhatsApp calls and messages in early December 2023. "You wanna play games… We are going to burn your houses in one night," one message said. "Wanna play games, let's go." Toor blocked the number, but continued getting calls from other unknown numbers. Four days later, one of his company's homes under construction in Beaumont, a city just south of Edmonton, was set alight. Within the following six weeks, two more of Toor's Beaumont properties burned, completely destroying them. The agreed facts say that, after the second home burned down, Toor got a call from a Dubai number and spoke to someone who identified himself as Dhaliwal. "He demanded that Toor pay him $1 million and said that if he was not paid within four days, there would be further destruction and a drive-by shooting at their personal residence," adding details about the location where Toor lived. The developer was so alarmed that he fled the country with his wife and children, staying away for several months. When they returned in the spring, they hired round-the-clock personal security. Arsons at homes owned by the three builders targeted in October and November of 2023 caused about $4 million total of damage in total, according to court records. Two more developers were subsequently targeted in late 2023 and early 2024, but Asht didn't admit to being involved in those offences. The agreed facts say that, by late December 2023, there started to be a "clear division" between the group members, where Gurkaran Singh emerged as the person "primarily in charge of instructing the team that had been responsible for the arsons." Lawyers for the three adults charged in the case — Heer, Gurkaran Singh and Parminder Singh — are set to meet for a procedural pre-trial court appearance later this month.