WINDSTORM, WILDFIRES LEAVE BEHIND A LOT OF DAMAGE

Wednesday was a day for assessing damage following a Tuesday windstorm that fanned wildfires in western Saskatchewan and damaged infrastructure across the province.

■ The provincial government did aerial reconnaissance on Wednesday to determine if any of the wildfires began in Saskatchewan, or crossed the border from Alberta.

Much of Saskatchewan was under a fire ban throughout a summer that saw little rain.

“With fire occurring overnight, it was very difficult to get any type of visual on what was burning,” said

Ray Unrau, director of operations for emergency management and fire services.

Unrau said the fire in Burstall came from Alberta.

He said it is likely the fires in Richmound and Tompkins did as well, but didn’t know for sure.

Wildfires were contained as of 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Leader and Burstall areas.

Local fire departments in Eatonia, Richmound, Mantario, Leader and Alsask helped fight the blaze.

An evacuation order was lifted 8:45 a.m. on Wednesday; 16 families from Burstall had evacuated to Kindersley.

■ The Richmound fire killed some livestock. Some residents chose to evacuate the area, heading to Maple Creek or Medicine Hat.

Three farms were affected by the fire.

■ In Tompkins, one farm lost a barn, a home and a shed in a large grass fire.

■ SaskPower had 26,000 calls from customers reporting power outages. The company expected to restore power to many of its customers on Wednesday, including in Regina and Moose Jaw.

There were 1,550 outages reported in Prince Albert and the north.

In Saskatoon, 300 customers were without power; 900 more were in central Saskatchewan.

In the southeast, nearly 700 customers reported outages.

In the southwest, which saw wildfires as well as wind damage, thousands of people were without power in communities like Climax, Eastend, Shaunavon and Maple Creek.

SaskPower expected it would take longer to restore service to those communities.

The company used a helicopter to patrol transmission lines on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, it prepared extra staff in preparation for the storm.

■ As of Wednesday morning, SaskTel had installed 20 generators to keep its communications systems up and running. Due to power outages, backup batteries were at risk of dying.

■ Two Cypress Health Region facilities in Leader were evacuated as a precaution, including 24 long-term care residents and three hospital in-patients.

The health region said it was communicating to area residents about food safety as, due to prolonged power outages, refrigerators and freezers would be dead.

It also communicated with people about how to deal with smoke inhalation.

■ As of Wednesday afternoon, SGI had received 816 potential windstorm claims from across Saskatchewan; 190 were auto-related and 626 property-related.

■ RCMP in the communities of Leader, Maple Creek, Kindersley, Biggar and North Battleford had an increased police presence to ensure public safety and protect property.