SaskatchewanA Saskatchewan firefighter who was on the front lines before half his community burned down in the summer says the province provided few reinforcements.Harley Vliegenthart was a guest of the Opposition NDP at the legislatureJeremy Simes · The Canadian Press · Posted: Nov 06, 2025 10:56 AM EST | Last Updated: 4 hours agoListen to this articleEstimated 3 minutesThe audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.Harley Vliegenthart told reporters his crew barely saw the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency throughout the fires in Denare Beach. (Jeremy Warren/CBC)A Saskatchewan firefighter who was on the front lines before half his community burned down in the summer says the province provided few reinforcements.Harley Vliegenthart said the small volunteer firefighting team at Denare Beach hardly saw the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency in the days before the blaze devastated the village in northeast Saskatchewan.On Wednesday, Vliegenthart was a legislature guest of the Opposition NDP, which demanded Premier Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan Party government provide answers on how it responded to the wildfire.”[There] were next to no reinforcements,” Vliegenthart told reporters. “The [Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency], we barely saw them throughout the entire situation.”We had water bombers in the air for [only] about half an hour.”Earlier in the day, NDP northern affairs critic Jordan McPhail asked the province why more wasn’t done to save the community where 700 people lived.”Denare Beach burned and [nearby] Flin Flon was spared,” he told the assembly.Public Safety Minister Tim McLeod said Denare Beach was defended by more resources than McPhail alleged.McLeod said that on May 19, immediately after the fire was reported, the agency responded with two air tankers, helicopters and ground crews. The fire grew substantially in the following days, he added.”[It was] extremely aggressive fire behaviour, unprecedented fire behaviour,” McLeod said.”These extreme fires required an indirect attack, as opposed to a direct attack, to maintain the safety and the well-being of our forest firefighters.”WATCH | Drone video shows cleanup in Denare Beach:Drone video shows cleanup in Denare Beach, Sask., nearly 5 months after destructive wildfireA wildfire tore through the northern community of Denare Beach, Sask., at the beginning of June 2025, wiping out 230 homes. Nearly five months later, the rubble and ash is mostly cleared away and rebuilding has begun.McLeod also accused the NDP of not being factual about what happened.”What I won’t do is exploit a tragedy … for political gain,” he said.McPhail fired back, saying he won’t be lectured on what he and his constituents saw.”Will that minister stand up right now and quit? Or better yet, will the premier stand up and fire him today?” he said.Vliegenthart said the minister’s version of events doesn’t align with what was happening on the ground.”Someone was asleep at the wheel and it never got through to who it needed to get through to,” he said.On the day the village was evacuated, members of his crew had been running around with their “heads chopped off,” installing sprinklers in nearby Creighton and fighting flames near Flin Flon, he said.LISTEN | Denare Beach residents rebuild as temperatures drop:The 3067:25Denare Beach residents rebuild as temperatures further dropRhonda Werbicki, Denare Beach resident, talks about cleaning up and rebuilding after wildfires destroyed her home earlier this year.In the days that followed, someone at the public safety agency advised the crew to get back to Denare Beach because the fire was getting close to the village, Vliegenthart said.”I can’t say with any sort of certainty, at any point in time, did anybody have the situation under control,” Vliegenthart said in a later interview.”It was a little too late,” he said. “It’s just failure across the board.”The NDP and Denare Beach village council have called on the province to order a public inquiry into the fire response to ensure everyone’s perspectives are heard.The province has declined to do so. Instead, it said there will be a third-party review.
Firefighter from Sask. village burnt by wildfire says province gave little help
