KAKABEKA FALLS — Dozens of people with camps in Cushing Lake Resort heard the news straight from resort co-owner Dale Wirta: Cushing Lake operations will pause all next year to rebuild from the past summer’s wildfire devastation.
Those whose camps survived the July blaze are free to use their lots next summer, he said, but the resort will offer no services.
“We technically won’t be open,” he told the assembled at the Kakabeka Falls Curling Club on Wednesday evening.
“We have too much to do.”
Restoring the area will be a yearlong project, he said.
The Fort Frances 14 forest fire ripped through much of the Lac des Mille Lacs area, including Wirta’s resort and Thousand Lakes Resort, in mid-July.
Wirta said the damage at Cushing Lake included destruction of the main lodge, cabins and many items of sentimental value.
“We’re here to express to you … how much of a disappointment the government is, how much incompetence there went into this,” he told reporters before Wednesday’s meeting.
“This was totally, 150 per cent preventable,” he continued.
“The MNR (Ministry of Natural Resources) did not do any due diligence. They knew the fire was burning weeks prior.
“There was no protection. We had no warning whatsoever at Cushing Lake (or) Thousand Lakes.
“I ran around waking people up. Within 20 minutes of waking people up, their houses were on fire.
“And the next day at approximately 10 o’clock Tuesday morning (July 14), the MNR came in to evacuate us.”
The day after that, July 15, Wirta said, he returned to his business to assess the situation.
What he saw was devastating, he said.
“Sixty-five to 67 trailers (were) total write-offs. We lost 11 cabins, the lodge, the restaurant, the bar, two garages, storage rooms, storage houses, cars, trucks, ATVs, equipment — and nobody still has yet come to talk to us, to see us, to offer any help or anything.”
Wirta said the fire inflicted great losses on people and businesses, “and our government and the MNR have not said a word to anybody.”
The ministry did not respond to a request for comment.
Rylie Isaacs, co-owner of the Lac de Mille Lodge, attended Wednesday’s meeting.
She told Newswatch she was there “to support our neighbours on Lac de Mille Lacs.”
Lac de Mille Lodge was “largely spared except for a few campsites that were burnt,” she said.
But other businesses weren’t so lucky, and “they deserve some help going forward,” she added.
The Fort Frances 14 fire could have been brought under control before it wiped out so many people’s camps, said Wirta.
“The incompetence is unbelievable,” he said.
He clarified that he’s not criticizing ground-level firefighters but rather “the people that are commanding and the people that hired them.”
Wirta said Natural Resources Minister Mike Harris “should be gone” if he’s “the person that’s in charge of hiring these so-called people to look after us.”
He added that Premier Doug Ford “does nothing for northern Ontario,” and neither does Thunder Bay-Atikokan MPP Kevin Holland, who is an associate minister in Ford’s cabinet.
Holland told Newswatch he has no comment.
The 2026 fire season wreaked havoc on many other northern camps and businesses, including Bruce Hyer’s Wabakimi Wilderness Lodge south of Armstrong.
Hyer told Newswatch his lodge sustained more than $3 million in damage from the massive wildfire dubbed Thunder Bay 36. The same fire that devastated Namaygoosisagagun First Nation, where Chief Helen Paavola also said they received no notice to evacuate from the MNR.
One important factor in Northwestern Ontario’s horrible fire season of 2026 is that climate change is producing fiercer fires, Hyer said.
Another factor, he said, is that the MNR is “really bad at putting out big fires in bad years since they don’t have the material and the manpower, the airplanes and the resources and funding.”
