In July while rain brought hope, provincial firefighters, volunteers, and military personnel continued to battle the forest fires in northern Saskatchewan.

Premier Brad Wall visited some of the evacuation centers when 125 fires were still burning in the province.

At the time Wall said it was hard to say when things would turn around.

“They want to go home. And who can blame them but we have got to make sure that happens when and only when it’s safe to do so. We have a very vigorous checklist that we begin to work on with community leaders and we have managed to go through a few of those checklists in communities and have all the boxes marked so there are some folks going home to their communities.”

Of the 1500 fire personnel fighting to control the blaze, 550 were members of the armed forces and 116 were out-of-province wildlife personnel, as part of a contingency plan. Within 48 hours after Premier Wall put in a call to Prime Minister Harper, troops were on the ground with more than 600 involved in firefighting alone.

“The ones that we are fighting are the ones that would threaten communities, infrastructure or property and were working hard to fight those. The rain is particularly helpful, like I said it has not been falling much but between cooler temperatures and additional resources I think people are hopeful.”

Wall visited some of the evacuation centers in Prince Albert, Saskatoon and Regina.

In total 10,398 evacuees received social services due to the fires.