The chaos of Ontario’s wildfire response, as told by evacuees

She gets up to look at the framed map of Lac des Mille Lacs on their dining room wall. But her ears stay focused on the call in the next room.

Their two dogs pace the room in the Thunder Bay home typically empty in the summer, back and forth under the dining table covered in papers, maps, family photos and signed football helmets the couple had received from nine years of guests at their lodge. It was all the things they couldn’t afford to leave behind.

Nobody in this house is at home. Not really.

It’s been days without knowing if their lodge, some two hours north, is standing. Or whether it’s been consumed by one of the fires raging across northern Ontario.

And they’re frustrated — at the situation and at the Ontario government’s response.

Ontario is in its worst ever wildfire season, early estimates suggest, with at least 160 fires burning across the province and smoke drifting south to Toronto and across the border. Thousands have evacuated and at least two communities — Whitewater Lake First Nation and Collins First Nation — have been burned to the ground, part of more than 735,000 hectares caught by the blaze.

Back on June 30, Laforge spotted smoke billowing over Byers Lake and called it in. He says he was told the fire was being monitored, that they weren’t in any danger. For the better part of two weeks, even as the smoke crept closer, that’s the answer they kept getting — under control, no need to worry.

But on July 13, with the flames visible from their property and their children panicking, Laforge finally convinced a hesitant Ministry of Natural Resources to order an evacuation. (MNR didn’t respond to questions about the evacuation timing.)

“He’s like, ‘We’re watching the monitor and the fire’s not at the same river yet,’” Isaacs recalls the fire management supervisor saying on the phone. “And we’re like, ‘No it’s here, we’re looking at it now.’”

Isaacs had given up on getting answers from official channels by then. A friend working in the ministry had started quietly sending her aerial footage of the fire’s path. She would cross-reference it with her detailed map of the region, tracking which resorts sat in the path to alert other neighbours.

When they came back to their campgrounds the next day, two trailers and two boats had burned to the ground. Other lodges nearby had it far worse.

Frustrated, Isaacs turned to the couple’s business Facebook page, switching from their usual fishing pictures to posting videos of the fires sent to her by others, and drawing millions of views. The stories kept piling in their comments, too. She heard from a friend whose sick, elderly mother lost her home. Another wrote them about seeing the flames rage while out on a little boat with their young daughter. 

“It’s been very scary to speak out,” Isaacs says. A mental health nurse, she knows when a system isn’t working. “I’m just, I’m so hurting for them.”

What happened to Rylie Isaacs and Robert Laforge, they feel, was not a single failure. It was two weeks and counting of it — a fire threat reported and dismissed, a monitor that didn’t keep up with the fast-moving flames, an evacuation order they had to wring out themselves.

The Star visited Thunder Bay and other parts of northwestern Ontario, speaking to evacuees from small towns, First Nations communities, and lodges. All point to the same pattern: delayed information, no clear chain of communication, and a system that seemed to respond only once a crisis had already arrived at someone’s door — and once people had started to take matters into their own hands.

Steve Penagin sits at a picnic table outside his family’s trailer, one hand on his knee, and the other holding an empty Tim Hortons coffee cup he’d been using as an ashtray. It had rained earlier that morning, a welcome sign if not for the lightning.

It was the coldest day since the elder and his family evacuated from Gull Bay First Nation earlier that week, making the nearly 200-kilometre trip to the campground on the outskirts of Thunder Bay. On top of that, he had a nagging cough.

“I got a bad cold,” he apologizes. But it wasn’t just that.

“Today, I’m just barely living every day in life. ‘Cause six years ago, I had a stroke.”

He can’t swallow anything, even a morning coffee, and feeds himself through a tube. And though he tells stories about Gull Bay, his home for decades, with a crisp memory, he can no longer hear his audience’s responses, unless they raise their voices close to his ears.

The smoke that chased him and his family out of Gull Bay has only made it worse.

“I need fresh air,” he says, thinking about the home he had to leave behind.

“That’s the first time I’ve been in Thunder Bay that long. I don’t really like Thunder Bay,” he laughs.

Next to him, his daughter-in-law Sharon Tyance stands watching, arms crossed, a smile on her face. Tyance had wanted so badly to stay behind, but her 13-year-old daughter has weak lungs and the worsening smoke had gotten her sick, like her grandfather. It only made sense to rush off with everyone on the two-hour drive to Thunder Bay, where there is a hospital.

“There’s five of us here,” Penagin says, contrasting the freedom he had at home. “There’s not so much room to move around.”

But he’s not worried about the fires, he says plainly. The rain, he added with certainty, will “look after us.”

What he is concerned about is a fire line that he thinks should have been built. Half a mile on both sides of the reserve, cleared, maintained and ready to go to reduce some of the risk. “You can’t do it at the last minute,” he says — advice no one in government had requested from him.

Back in Gull Bay, around a dozen people had refused to leave their homes behind, feeling they could hold their ground and defend their community if needed — because they don’t trust the government to do it.

That put them at odds with their chief, who had issued the evacuation order days earlier amid a lack of information from the ministry. If the fires reached the community while people were still there, the First Nation’s leadership argued, water bombers would not be used, increasing the risk to everyone.

Trying to force people to leave the area, the Ontario government extended road closures in the area.

Despite the alignment on that issue, Gull Bay Chief Wilfred King kept his focus on what he saw as the main problem during a news conference with other evacuated First Nations leader on Tuesday: the Ford government’s handling of the fires.

Demanding a public inquiry and the resignations of government officials, King was blunt. “The lack of communication and evacuation support should horrify all Canadians,” he said. “Our community was on its own.”

“It’s not just emergency management,” says Nishnawbe Aski Nation Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler. “As First Nations people, we are subject to these systems that were not designed by us, but they were imposed on us.”

Speaking from his Thunder Bay office, he lists how First Nation communities he represents have been faring. In Fort Hope, a fly-in community more than 350 kilometres to the north, the most vulnerable residents had just started evacuating with the help of the military, something that can only happen once the province requests help from Ottawa.

But with Thunder Bay stretched, community members were being sent hundreds of kilometres even further to Niagara Falls.

“The frustrating part is that we shouldn’t be even talking about whose jurisdiction it is for this area or that community,” Fiddler says. “I mean, these are human beings.”

Fiddler pulls out his phone to show a photo of Premier Doug Ford at a news conference last weekend in Thunder Bay. The premier is flanked by several of his own ministers, a local MP and Thunder Bay city officials.

“No First Nation,” Fiddler says, holding up the photo. Some First Nations leaders have criticized the premier for not meeting them while in town.

“That picture, I think, tells the story.”

The few provincial and federal officials he had been able to get in touch with had not given clear answers to his questions about the kind of supports available to First Nations, Fiddler says.

“I worry about our young people because of all the trauma that they’re experiencing.”

In a statement, the Ford government defended itself against accusations of underfunding or failing in its communications, but said it would review how evacuations unfolded.

“We are responding to an evolving and pressing issue in Northwestern Ontario that involves ongoing collaboration with the federal government and emergency management partners,” wrote a spokesperson for MNR. “At the same time, our government remains focused on ongoing communication with First Nation leaders to improve coordination across governments during this fire season and strengthen evacuation efforts.”

Fiddler says he personally warned Ford as far back as 2021.

After that intense Ontario wildfire season, the Nishnawbe Aski Nation drew up a host of recommendations on how to improve the system and give First Nations better tools to independently prepare for emergencies, and avoid the chaos of the past few weeks.

That includes more funding and resources to avoid last-minute scrambles, he says, but also upgrades to things like airport infrastructure in remote areas, where military planes have a hard time landing during evacuations.

At the least, they want a seat at the table, Fiddler says.

“It’s our people that are being impacted the most, and if there’s going to be a discussion about planning or addressing concerns or gaps, then we should be there,” Fiddler says.

“Being in survival mode all the time, that can’t be healthy.”