Harley Vliegenthart can’t forget trying to save his community from raging fire.
The local volunteer firefighter worked on the front lines as wildfires tore through Denare Beach, destroying half of the remote lakeside community in northeast Saskatchewan last summer.
“It was a week that felt like a month,” he said.
He lost his childhood home in the devastation.
Vliegenthart said he remembers working the Club fire as the much larger Wolf fire looped around the community, undetected until it was too late. He refused to leave until he was ordered to evacuate.
The psychological toll has been heavy.
“The feelings didn’t set in until it was all over — depression and hopelessness,” he said.
“Not just my family, but over 240 families here in Denare Beach lost everything they’ve ever worked for for their entire lives.”
Wildfires scorched 2.9 million hectares of Saskatchewan forest last year, forcing thousands of people from their homes and destroying more than 450 dwellings across 25 locations in the province, according to the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency (SPSA).
Some experts are warning this year could be just as bad.
A relatively dry fall and unusual winter conditions are setting the stage, said Colin Laroque, a professor of environmental science and head of the soil science department at the University of Saskatchewan.
Laroque said the province entered winter in a relative drought, with low soil moisture levels already in place.
Periods of repeated freezing, thawing and rain over winter condensed the snowpack, while evaporation reduced moisture, he said.
“We’re getting into that really critical time.”
If spring brings high temperatures, that moisture may not be able to penetrate ground that’s already dry, increasing the odds of another severe wildfire season, Laroque said.
He also warned of a high chance of “zombie fires,” which can smolder underground over winter and reappear in spring.
The province’s wildfire budget is not nearly enough to deal with what lies ahead for the province this wildfire season, he predicted.
Finance Minister Jim Reiter called this year’s provincial budget “essentially” the status quo for wildfire preparation and response.
The province announced a $20-million increase for the SPSA earlier this month, bringing its total budget to $140 million. The increase includes an additional water bomber.
Wildfire response took a big toll on last year’s budget. The province noted a $970-million increase in total expenses, “reflecting significant wildfire response activities and increased human services demands.”
Last year’s wildfire season was “unprecedented,” Reiter said in his recent 2026 budget address.
“Hopefully, we don’t have the kind of year we had last year.”
Laroque warned that last year’s wildfire season is likely the “new normal,” noting fire seasons that once lasted for short periods could now stretch for months at a time.
Part of the problem relates to weather, but another cause is a change in land management practices over the past 30 to 50 years that allowed for fuel levels to build up, he said.
Eric Lamb, a professor in the department of plant sciences at U of S and curator of the W.P. Fraser Herbarium, said Canadians must accept that they live in an ecosystem shaped by fire.
He argued that extreme weather conditions are no longer rare and require a different approach focused more on preventative measures, like prescribed burns, before a wildfire season begins.
A prescribed burn is the intentional use of fire ignited by experts to help manage land, boost ecosystem health and reduce wildfire hazards.
There are also low-intensity burns or cultural burns, lit by Indigenous firekeepers for centuries to rebalance ecosystems.
Lamb uses prescribed fire as a management tool in his collaboration with the Meewasin Valley Authority in the Saskatoon area.
“We’ve basically created a place in the landscape where a wildfire can’t go for a period of time,” he said. “If we’re careful in how we do that, we can create a landscape that’s much, much more resilient to wildfire.”
Lamb said prescribed fire would not have changed the outcome of last year’s wildfire season, but it can help prevent or reduce similar devastation in the future.
There should be a focus on prescribed fire and suppression resources, “because the reality is, somewhere in Canada every year, that water bomber is going to be needed,” he said.
“I wouldn’t want to convey the impression that prescribed fire is something that will prevent all wildfires. They’re going to occur.”
The goal is to reduce the risk of catastrophic damage and give crews a landscape they can work with, not against, he said.
The provincial safety agency said it works with external partners to help execute prescribed burn projects, or what it calls resource management fires, throughout Saskatchewan.
“The SPSA has and will continue to work with communities or groups that have a common interest in resource management fires,” the agency said in an email to CBC Monday.
It added it supports these projects through assisting with prescribed burn planning, burn plan reviews, training, consultations, on-scene support and approvals for these fires.
Vliegenthart said his village is already preparing for the future.
With so much land burned last year, the immediate risk to the community is lower this time around, but that hasn’t brought a sense of security, he said.
Residents of the village are taking matters into their own hands, looking at additional training for urban interface wild firefighting and investing in equipment like sprinkler systems and supplies.
The government needs to realize that severe wildfire seasons will become more common as things continue to get hotter and drier due to climate change, he said.
“If we’re going to be able to tackle that and not get left behind, we need to be able to work together.”
