More than 2,000 residents of two First Nations and a town in northern Manitoba who were forced out by wildfires this summer are returning to their homes, after spending months in hotels during the worst wildfire season the province has seen in decades.

"Everybody is just happy to go back," said Don McCallum, the chief administrative officer of Marcel Colomb First Nation.

"We always thought that we would be out for three or four weeks. We didn't think it was going to be the whole damn summer."

Marcel Colomb, which has been evacuated since early July , and Pukatawgan (also known as Mathias Colomb First Nation), evacuated since late May , have now lifted the two longest-running mandatory evacuation orders in the province . Residents started heading home to the communities in northwes

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