(File photo/paNOW Staff)

By Teena Monteleone

public alerting

In the midst of wildfire season, province cancelled request for bids to improve evacuation app

Jul 9, 2025 | 5:29 PM

In late March, the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency (SPSA) put out a request for bids (RFB) to develop a mobile app that could be used during evacuations. However, it was cancelled shortly after.

“The RFB process for a mobile app version began prior to wildfire season and was placed on hold in June due to active wildfire response and evacuations taking priority,” the SPSA told paNOW.

The mobile app was meant to supplement the SPSA’s Saskatchewan Evacuation web based application; it would not replace SaskAlert which is the province’s emergency public alerting program.

The RFB project description said the SPSA frequently evacuates residents from disaster communities, but their reaction time can be delayed by outdated methods and systems which are mainly manual in nature.

“SPSA need a platform that will provide them with the capability to register evacuees, manage evacuation resources, communicate effectively, and make data-driven decisions in real time,” the RFB read.

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A screenshot of the SPSA’s request for bids. (saskpublicsafety.bonfirehub.ca)

The Sask Evac App was launched last year with the goal of ensuring people receive timely support they need after being evacuated from their communities. But this year’s unprecedented early wildfire season has proven otherwise with complaints from evacuees about ad hoc evacuation plans, minimal support and little or confusing communication.

A Saskatoon law firm is examining whether to pursue a class action lawsuit on behalf of wildfire evacuees who allege the province was negligent and lacked proper resources.

Climate change experts say events like the wildfires or the recent flash floods in Texas show the perils of failing to notify the public properly about extreme weather events.

Zach Davidson Carriere is a research associate with the Climate Change Adaptation team at the Canadian Climate Institute. He said global warming is leading to more extreme rainfall and flooding events, as well as out of control wildfires due to drought.

“We need to have better alerting systems so that when extreme events happen, people are able to get to safety,” Carrier said.

Before warnings can happen, however, he said governments and the public need to better understand the risks.

“The best medicine is prevention. So, it’s important that given increasing flood risks, that we’re not building new homes in flood zones and in order to do that, as well as protect existing homes, we need up-to-date flood mapping,” he said.

Carriere said a lot of jurisdictions in Canada have outdated wildfire risk and flood mapping. Some of the flood maps are 25 years out of date – which means the information isn’t there to truly understand current and future, growing risk. He said once risk maps are updated, there needs to be investments in adaptation.

“That could mean things like improved damning and infrastructure to divert water, improve draining systems in urban areas so that they have more capacity to absorb extreme rainfall,” Carriere said. “These are the kinds of preventative measures that are important. And then, as a last resort, we need to have better alerting systems.”

Consistency is key

In Texas, officials are facing scrutiny about a lack of public alerts prior to the flash floods. CBS News reported that the local government did not send any alerts to Kerr Country, where the tragedy occurred; they were reliant on the National Weather Service alerts. Some residents said they didn’t receive the emergency alerts on their phones or didn’t understand the severity of the warnings they did see.

Carrier said in Canada, there isn’t a consistent standard across the country when it comes to warning systems. The many disconnected systems can delay responses to critical events or create confusion at times when teams and emergency command centres need to operate in coordination.

“Every province has their own warning systems and when it comes to flood forecasting, they will broadcast those in different ways. So, certainly emergency cellphone warnings that can get out to people beyond the traditional channels are important so that people are aware of an emergency. One issue that we’ve seen though, in different parts of Canada, is a lack of service in rural and remote areas, so people don’t get those warnings necessarily in time.”

Carriere said that was the issue in Novia Scotia during flooding in 2023. The mother of a young boy who died in the flood has since launched a lawsuit, saying the municipality and province failed to send an emergency alert in a reasonable time frame.

During the early spring wildfires in Saskatchewan, questions were raised about the province’s SaskAlert app. Only 235 out of 766 jurisdictions in the province are registered for the emergency mass notification service. Adding to the disconnect between local, provincial and national public alerting is the fact that several municipalities in Saskatchewan use their own mass notification service.

There have been dozens of complaints about the shortcomings of public alert systems across the country. In fact, following extreme wildfires, heatwaves, and major flooding in 2021, media reported that British Columbia had never used Canada’s national public alert system Alert Ready.

Carriere said all levels of government need to review how to better coordinate between provincial, federal and local warning systems.

“As well as ensuring that there’s service in remote areas… or where there’s not service in remote areas that are at risk, that there are other means of warning people whether that’s boots on the ground, or sirens…something like that,” Carriere said.

With increasing climate change and the increasing threat of extreme events, Carriere said the ability to warn the public is more important than ever.

Despite cancelling the request for bids, the SPSA said it will look to enhance its Sask Evac App through a mobile option in the future.

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teena.monteleone@pattisonmedia.com