THUNDER BAY — There’s no end in sight to Whitesand First Nation’s evacuation, according to Chief Lawrence Wanakamik.
“But we’ll see next week,” Wanakamik told Newswatch as First Nation members continued to shelter in a south-side Thunder Bay hotel.
The chief said he heard last week from band members who are still on the reserve next to Armstrong, and they said all buildings there are still standing. Whitesand and Armstrong, about 220 kilometres north of Thunder Bay, evacuated as a raging forest fire neared the communities.
The blaze, which has merged with other wildfires and is now labelled Thunder Bay 36, remains out of control and at its peak spanned 320,000 hectares—making it not just the largest wildfire of the 2026 season, but the largest ever recorded in Ontario.
The mega-blaze was measured at 313,930 as of Wednesday evening. That far exceeds the previous provincial record of 196,974 hectares set by last year’s Red Lake 12 wildland fire.
Ministry of Natural Resources fire information officer Karen Dykxhoorn told Newswatch in an email Wednesday evening that recent rainfall resulted in “a reduction in fire behaviour” for Thunder Bay 36 and “there has been no significant growth in the last five days.”
The MNR says Thunder Bay 36 has been assigned a 20-person “incident management team” and nine crews of four or five members each, as well as five heavy equipment operators and five helicopters.
Helicopters support firefighters “by providing an aerial view of current conditions, transporting crews and equipment, serving as a safety resource, and conducting water-bucketing operations directly on the fire,” the information officer said.
Besides Whitesand, at least two other First Nations have been heavily impacted by Thunder Bay 36.
Every resident of Namaygoosisagagun First Nation, also called Collins First Nation, fled the fire on July 13. Video from the First Nation indicates the blaze left virtually no structures standing in the lakeside settlement west of Whitesand.
A mandatory evacuation was implemented for Kiashke Zaaging Anishinaabek (Gull Bay First Nation), an Ojibwe community on the western shore of Lake Nipigon.
