66 fires currently burning in the Northwest Territories, evacuation alert remains in place for Fort Simpson

As of 3 p.m. Saturday there were 66 fires burning across the Northwest Territories.

Most of the new starts are in the North Slave region, and are being monitored by N.W.T. Fire.

Fort Simpson remains under an evacuation alert. Thomas Bentham, a N.W.T. Fire information officer, confirmed the blaze was now eight kilometres from the community, based on a reassessment of the fire location conducted on Saturday morning.

“I can tell you with confidence that the tanker efforts last night were pretty successful,” said Bentham. “They were able to limit the growth to the north and the east of the fire perimeter and they are going to continue dropping water.”

Two groups of air tankers alongside two helicopters will continue to action the fire, he says. Additionally an Incident Management Team is en route, plus more wildland firefighters, are expected to arrive in Fort Simpson today. 

Incident Management Teams are essentially a strike force that can be deployed to specific fires to support the region. The team usually consists of an incident commander for that specific fire, and a number of other people to coordinate all the resources, firefighters and aircraft needed to manage the fire. 

Joining them will be a Wildland Urban Interface team from Hay River. Launched this May, these teams help community firefighters and wildland firefighters where homes and other infrastructure meet the natural environment. 

“The structural firefighters make sure that everything’s up to snuff in terms of whether or not they need to set up structure protection and things of that nature,” said Bentham. 

All of this is in preparation should the situation become more dangerous for the community, said Bentham.

For now, Bentham says the evacuation alert remains “as it is”. 

“We are going to maintain the alert status,” he said, meaning while it hasn’t been removed, it also hasn’t escalated. 

He added that while smoke is visible from the community, weather forecasting predicts at least in the short term that winds are pushing the fire away from the community. 

“It’s blowing in a positive direction away from the community. So it’s not terribly bad, but it’s definitely hazy,” he said. “The wind is not pushing very strongly. It’s just going in the right direction.”

‘Thousands of lightning strikes’ raise fire activity

On Friday, N.W.T. Fire reported 27 new fire starts — the most in one day this season. These were caused by ‘dry lightning,’ or lightning that occurs when the weather is hot and dry with little or no rain. 

“We saw thousands of lightning strikes throughout the territory,” said Bentham. “We are still doing our catch up.”

On Saturday morning, crews were still accounting for new fire starts and smoke alerts, stretching resources thin. These conditions, says Bentham, are not likely to change anytime soon. 

“We are looking at hot, dry conditions throughout the territory and chances of dry lightning throughout,” he said, adding that the relative humidity is expected to be lower than the actual air temperature. 

“This is not good for wildfire fighting conditions. We’re especially going to see a risk in the Wood Buffalo National Park and [Fort] Smith area with isolated lightning in the Sahtú and Dehcho,” he said. “So we’re not out of the woods yet. It’s going to be a busy weekend for everyone here at N.W.T. Fire.”

Currently, he says there are 62 fires active in the territory. Not all of them are being actioned, he added, but many of them are.

The Fort Simpson fire is currently their main concern, as well as SS009, in the South Slave. Located about three kilometers north of the Alberta border, N.W.T. Fire has multiple aircrafts and crews managing it to make sure the highway stays safe. 

“We implore people to please, if they’re out on the land, if they’re out camping, make sure that there are no human caused fires,” said Bentham. “We do not want to have to divert the very important resources that are being applied to communities to a human caused fire.”