The way Ontario handled this year's wildfire season is now facing formal scrutiny. The province's Auditor General has confirmed that an audit is now underway, looking into whether the provincial government's wildfire response was adequate.
That scrutiny is unfolding while the emergency is still active. More than 100 wildfires continue to burn across northwestern Ontario.
The human toll has fallen heavily on Indigenous communities. The fires have forced thousands of people from First Nations communities to flee their homes.
For many of those communities, the central grievance is how they were left to cope. First Nations say they want answers about why they were forced to flee on their own, with not enough warning or help from the government.
Their leaders are pressing for a formal reckoning. They are doubling down on their calls for a public inquiry, arguing the province did not properly prepare for this year's wildfire season.
One leader summed up the frustration bluntly. "There's questions that need to be asked. Responses that need to be catered or accommodated to include First Nations, our remote communities in the north. There's a lot of things that were overlooked."
The provincial government, for its part, is standing by how it handled the crisis. It says the fires this year were erratic and hard to predict, but would not say whether it would launch a public inquiry.
Whether an inquiry follows the audit remains an open question. A legal expert notes that public inquiries can provide an in-depth and transparent investigation, but tend to be expensive and lengthy.