Former public safety supervisor says agency ignored ideas to save Denare Beach amid wildfire

A former fire base supervisor with the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency says he quit his job out of frustration as a wildfire tore through a northern village earlier this summer.

Trevor Sewap says he was based out of Pelican Narrows and offered to send helicopters to help save Denare Beach, but officials with the agency declined his proposal.

He says they also ignored other ideas to fight the fire that eventually destroyed about half the buildings in the community of 700 people.

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Sewap, whose home in Denare Beach burned down in the fire, says he was fed up and left his job.

Sewap was a guest at the legislature of the Opposition NDP, which has been pressing Premier Scott Moe’s government to call a public inquiry into the blaze that residents say the province was ill-prepared to fight.

Public Safety Minister Tim McLeod has said the fire was extremely aggressive and the agency fought it with everything it could.

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