Nearly half of the people forced from their homes by wildfires in Saskatchewan will be allowed to return later this week with conditions slightly improving in the province, but thousands remain displaced across large parts of Canada.

Premier Scott Moe said around 7,000 people in the north-central Saskatchewan region around Lac La Ronge will see evacuation orders lifted Thursday. Still, he cautioned, his government is maintaining a provincewide state of emergency until further notice.

Federal officials are warning that prolonged heat waves and lower-than-normal precipitation are expected to create conditions ripe for wildfires this summer, with hundreds already burning from Northwestern Ontario to British Columbia.

A new wildfire this week has threatened Squamish, B.C. – often called Canada’s outdoor recreation capital – adding to more than 225 wildfires across the country, at least 102 of which are deemed out of control.

Joy Fiddler sat outside a hotel smoking a cigarette, as her daughter, Saffron, registered their family of nine with the Canadian Red Cross. Fleeing from an out-of-control wildfire near her Northern Ontario home in Sandy Lake First Nation, she had slept for less than an hour after arriving more than 1,500 kilometres away in Cornwall.

“All I saw was orange,” Ms. Fiddler, 51, said Monday afternoon, recalling her 11-hour wait at the Sandy Lake airport, where military aircraft and helicopters have been landing since Saturday, struggling to airlift nearly 3,000 people amid heavy smoke.

Trapped by a raging wildfire rapidly encircling his construction site in Northwestern Ontario, Neal Gillespie and 18 members of his crew were forced to huddle inside shipping containers to save their lives.

For hours, while the sky around them turned fluorescent orange and the air filled with thick fumes, the construction workers near Sandy Lake First Nation stayed stuck in the cramped space. Helicopters made several rescue attempts, though the smoke prevented any landings. Eventually, the group had no choice but to flee.

Hazardous fumes and thick smoke have blanketed Western Canada, extending toward large parts of Ontario and even beyond the country’s border – an ominous sign that wildfire season is well under way.

After fleeing the rapidly spreading wildfires abutting her north-central Saskatchewan community, Sandra Thompson found shelter hundreds of kilometres away from the shores of Lac La Ronge at a friend’s apartment in Saskatoon this week.

As she closed her eyes in bed, however, what came was not sleep. It was exhaustion and deepening anxiety. All she could think about was home – what little of it may remain, and when or if she would be able to go back there again.

As harrowing wildfires encroach either side of his northern Manitoba community, the chief of Pimicikamak Cree Nation says his only option these days is to pray for some relief.

David Monias has watched the air in his traditional territory mutate from tints of yellow to an ominous reddish brown over the last week. Beset by fires spreading from island to island near Cross Lake, he has waved goodbye to hundreds of Pimicikamak members fleeing on military planes, helicopters, ferries, buses and shuttles – including many of his own family.

Rain and cooler temperatures on the Prairies offered little to no respite from multiple wildfires burning in the region, as provinces opened thousands of hotel rooms for evacuees from Western Canada.

More than 190 wildfires were active across the country Monday, with 97 deemed out of control. Hazardous smoke and thick fumes reached beyond the Canadian border, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which issued air-quality warnings from Minnesota to Florida.

Hundreds of new evacuations were ordered by Manitoba and Saskatchewan sought international help on Saturday, as raging wildfires in Western Canada this week have already forced thousands of people to leave their homes.

Residents of Cranberry Portage in the rural municipality of Kelsey, Man., close to the Saskatchewan border, were ordered to head to Winnipeg, where more than 17,000 evacuees from other areas in the province are being housed in arenas and soccer fields converted into shelters.

Wildfires across Western Canada have forced thousands of people from their homes, as dry, warm and windy temperatures intensified new flares Friday, causing Manitoba to ask for international help.

Manitoba and Saskatchewan are under provincewide states of emergency for the next month, while evacuations have also been ordered in large parts of Alberta and British Columbia.

Out-of-control wildfires in western and central Canada have triggered states of emergency in two provinces and forced thousands to flee their homes as officials warn that warm and windy weather could intensify fire behaviour in the days ahead.

More than 160 wildfires burned across the country on Thursday, with dozens spanning from northwestern Ontario through to the northern regions of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia.

Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew has declared a state of emergency for at least 30 days, as multiple wildfires are spreading across vast parts of the entire province, forcing more than 17,000 people to evacuate their homes.

The province has called upon the Canadian Armed Forces to fly residents from several Northern communities toward safer areas, Mr. Kinew said Wednesday evening, just hours after seeking the military assistance from Prime Minister Mark Carney. The majority of those people will be temporarily housed in Winnipeg, where soccer fields and arenas are being readied to become large-scale evacuation centres.

Alberta’s government is planning to set new requirements for school libraries by this fall, prohibiting books that the province deems age-inappropriate because of what it qualifies as sexually explicit content.

Demetrios Nicolaides, the province’s Education and Childcare Minister, said Monday that Premier Danielle Smith’s government has found inconsistent standards among school libraries. Education boards take different approaches to the books available for kindergarten to Grade 12 students, he said, adding that many boards do not have strong enough safeguards in place.