A remote evacuation scramble as the Northwest Territories burns

CLIP You’re listening to a frequency podcast network production in association with City News.

Jordan: Guess what, folks? We’re here to do another episode about wildfires today. First, though, you’re gonna listen to me rant a little bit. This is the seventh episode we have done on this topic in 2023, really in just the last four months about fires, smoke, how to fight them, or how we’re gonna have to live with them. The last time we did seven episodes over four months on one topic, most of us were sheltering in our homes without masks, without vaccines. Scared out of our minds. Just to give you an idea of the level of coverage we’re dealing with here this summer, thousands upon thousands of Canadians, literally from British Columbia to Atlantic Canada, all the way up to the Arctic Circle, are fleeing their homes instead of sheltering in them. And this week, its Northwest Territories turn,

CLIP: NASA releasing these satellite images. Tuesday of wildfire smoke surrounding Yellowknife in Canada’s northwest territories. Yellowknife city council, declaring a state of local emergency as fires currently sit 20 kilometres northwest of the city, city officials urging people to be calm and ready.

Jordan: Now, I would like us all to just pause for a minute before we get into the episode and reflect on how we are doing. That’s all. See, I live in Toronto. You live here, or you live somewhere else, and maybe you live somewhere where you haven’t even cut a whiff of smoke all summer. That’s great. But guess what? It’s gonna be your turn. Eventually. This is coming for all of us, which is why you get seven wildfire episodes and by the end of the summer, probably more. And here’s the thing, every one of those stories is different. In this case, how do you evacuate communities that don’t have roads? Or maybe they have one road in the roads on fire. How do you coordinate emergency and relief efforts, or even just communication over such a gigantic swath of land? How do you do all of that without much infrastructure to spread the word in a place where Facebook is a vital resource for many, but the local news can’t even post there right now. See, every one of these stories is different. And maybe as you’re listening today, imagine as you do, what will be different about your area’s story when the fires or the floods or the storms, or come for you. I am Jordan Heath-Rawlings. This is The Big Story. Emily Blake is a reporter and an assistant editor with Cabin Radio in Northwest Territories. Hi Emily.

Emily Blake: Hi. How are you doing?

Jordan: I’m good. I’m gonna start with this. Where are you right now, but more importantly, what’s it like outside your window?

Emily Blake: Yeah, so I’m in Yellowknife and, and downtown Yellowknife I should say. And it’s actually looking pretty clear outside. It was quite smoky this morning. But I mean, as I’ve seen this summer, it, things can change pretty quickly in terms of when the wind changes, how smoky it is.

Jordan: I understand there are, while many evacuation notices, but also some right in Yellowknife, what are the plans right now? What’s happening on the ground?

Emily Blake: Yeah, so here at the territorial level I guess there’s sort of three different levels. There’s evacuation notice, evacuation alert, and then evacuation order. So there are currently five communities in the territory that are an evacuation order, which means people are told to get out as soon as they can. In Yellowknife, there is an evacuation alert for three areas on the west end of the city, which means that people don’t currently have to evacuate, but basically they should be ready to leave at a moment’s notice. And so those areas are the Engle Business District, the Kam Lake Industrial area, and the Grace Lake neighbourhood.

Jordan: Can you give us a sense of the scale right now? I think a lot of people, particularly those in Southern Canada, don’t understand how vast the territories are. Like how many fires are burning in the Northwest Territories? How much area has been impacted?

Emily Blake: The territorial Wildfire Agency’s website, it was last updated this morning at 10:00 AM So there are currently 236 active fires across the Northwest Territories. So far there have been a total of 268 wildfires this year that have burned more than 2.1 million hectares.

Jordan: I understand there are very specific challenges to some of these areas, so maybe give us a sense of like where they are and what communities are impacted.

Emily Blake: Yeah, so I guess the five communities that were evacuated and they were evacuated over a 24 hour period over the weekend were Fort Smith hay River, cat Che, first Nation Enterprise, and Jean Marie River. And those evacuations were related to two different wildfires. And there’s several other wildfires in the area as well. So there’s one that, the last update last night was that it was four kilometres from Fort Smith in that case, you know, all but the most essential first responders have been pulled outta the community. And then the other wildfire that was threatening the other communities, it actually burned right through enterprise. It affected some areas between Enterprise and Hay River, and it’s still affecting those communities.

Jordan: Tell me about Enterprise. I think some people, including myself, have seen some pretty disturbing photos from that area.

Emily Blake: Yeah, so it’s a fairly small community. It’s somewhat close to the Alberta border. And yeah, like you’ve said, we’ve seen some pretty, you know, shocking photos that have come out of there. You know, there’s areas where there used to be a gift shop and houses and it’s just completely raised to the ground. And, you know, we haven’t gotten full confirmation of the exact extent of the damage, but the Mayor Michael St. Amour was talking to CBC and he thinks, you know, up to 90% of the community is just gone.

Jordan: We’ve seen a lot of evacuation notices, orders, et cetera, across Canada all year. What’s different about evacuating a remote community? What do you, what do you have to take into consideration? Like some of these communities have no roads.

Emily Blake: You know, I guess in the context of southern Canada, all of the territories communities are quite remote in a lot of cases. There’s only one road in and out of the community, and there are several communities that there are no all season roads. So the only way to access them in the summer is through flights or through ferries. And in the winter there’s also ice roads, you know, so all of the, the communities that were evacuated over the weekend do have road access, but as I mentioned, there’s only one road in and out and wildfires have been threatening road access. So for Jean Marie River, for example, the road was actually closed before the evacuation order came out. And the access road to Hay River right now is not accessible. So a lot of people have had to be flown out in Hay River, for example. Hundreds of people were flown out. Fort Smith, people were flown out. And that requires a lot of coordination, a lot of communication, a lot of different parties working together, whether it’s the towns and the territorial government. And the military has also come in to help.

Jordan: It the military doing the flying? Who’s doing the evacuations?

Emily Blake: Yeah, so the military has been assisting with flying. I know in Fort Smith there was actually a Herc that they brought in to take people out. You know, there’s also a lot in terms of where people are going and keeping track of evacuees. So initially there was an evacuation centre set up in Grand Prairie. I know folks are being told to go to St. Albert now. There are also people in Fort McMurray, there are people in Fort Simpson here in the territory.

Jordan: What’s the communication been like? And here, I don’t just mean from authorities, but that as well, like, when you’re dealing with so many communities so far from one another, you know, how do you go about news gathering? You’re obviously not gonna be able to go and, and look at all these places. You’re not gonna be able to necessarily get reliable information in real time. Like what kind of challenges does just organizational communication over that kind of distance bring?

Emily Blake: Yeah, I mean, you know, since we, we regularly report in the north, we’re kind of used to that and we have contacts in different communities. We have a pretty good rapport with people across the territory who will send us information. Facebook is quite popular up here, so it’s a good way to get information. You know, even towns will use it as their official source to post information. But it, it can be quite difficult trying to find information in all of these different places and, and gather it together. And also the wildfire that hit Enterprise actually damaged the fibre line that provides telecommunication services to the South Slave region. Hmm. So a lot of people there don’t have internet unless they’re able to get access to Starlink. They don’t have cell phone services right now. So that’s been an extra added challenge

Jordan: Because you mentioned it and because we’re in the middle of an emergency, I’ll ask you has there been any impact from Facebook’s blocking of news and Bill C-18 in the middle of this?

Emily Blake: Yeah, I mean, personally I have to say, there definitely has been, you know, we’ve tried to get information out beforehand as much as we can that, you know, you’re probably gonna lose access to our Facebook page and here’s what we’re doing about it. But we have still gotten tonnes of messages from people saying, why can’t we see your news on Facebook? Why can’t I post news on Facebook? And, you know, it, it is a really good way to get information out quickly to people. We can see comments and messages and what’s being shared. And I’ve seen a lot of misinformation and rumours and speculation circulating on social media. And not being able to post, you know, accurate, timely information from news sources is not helping that.

Jordan: Do we know about how the fight against these fires is going? Who’s doing it and, and how are the efforts to control them proceeding?

Emily Blake: Mm-Hmm. . So the territorial government takes responsibility for wildfire fighting in the territory. And we have firefighters from across Canada, the Yukon, Alaska, and South Africa here. And as I mentioned earlier the military is also here. The Canadian Armed Forces arrived with more than a hundred soldiers earlier this week. There are suppression efforts, so things like water bombers and helicopters are trying to drop water on certain areas of, of wildfires to prevent them from growing. And hotspots, firefighters are, are on the ground trying to put out hotspots. I know that can sometimes be a challenge when wildfire smoke is extreme because it can create visibility challenges, which means that they can’t fly. There’s also a lot of, I would call protection efforts going on. So things like retardant lines and fire breaks and fire smarting and putting up sprinklers in order to slow the spread of fires and try to prevent them from burning down structures.

Jordan: Do we know if it’s working?

Emily Blake: You know, it’s hard for me to say because I’m not a wildfire expert. You know, we have seen it, it work in some cases. And the territorial government has said that in cases where wildfires have encroached on communities and cabins, there have been dozens of structures that have been saved. Okay. But we have seen an incredible amount of loss this year. And we’ve also seen, you know, what experts are saying is pretty unusual wildfire behaviour. So we had a pretty extreme wildfire season in the Northwest Territories in 2015 or 2014 rather. And they said in one case that a wildfire actually burned through an area that had previously burned from 2014, which is incredibly unusual. Huh. We’ve seen cases where wildfires have moved up to 50 kilometres in a single day because of extreme winds and firefighters have had to pull back.

Jordan: How does this year compare to 2014 in terms of what we know so far about lake number of fires, damage, hectares, burned, et cetera?

Emily Blake: Yeah, I mean, so this, this season is extraordinary. As I mentioned that 2014 season, it was the worst wildfire season on record in the Northwest Territories here. People call it the summer of smoke. I didn’t live in the territory at the time, but I’ve seen videos and photos and it was horrific. And from everything we’re being told by officials this year is going to be even worse. So in 2014, I believe two communities were evacuated. We’ve already seen eight communities evacuated in the territory. This year there was 3.4 million hectares burned in 2014, and as I mentioned this year we’re already up to more than 2.1 million. The wildfires in 2014 cost the territory $56.1 million. And the territorial government has said this year is already gonna cost more than that. From reports that I can tell there wasn’t a tonne of loss in 2014, whereas this year, dozens of cabins and homes and buildings have been destroyed.

Jordan: You mentioned there are parts of Yellowknife under like evacuation watch. I guess are there plans for if the city needs to be evacuated? Like that would seem like a huge undertaking in a remote place.

Emily Blake: Yeah, so there’s more than 20,000 people that live here. So if the whole community or the whole city had to be evacuated, that would be a huge undertaking. The city’s plan right now is for residents in those affected areas that I mentioned, that if they are under evacuation order, which means that they have to leave because of the risk from wildfire, that they would be moved to other places in the city. So the city has previously opened its multiplex as an evacuation centre for residents that have been evacuated from other areas in the territories from wildfires. So they would do that again for residents here. People could also stay with friends and family or at hotels in the city. They also have some areas where people could have tents or campers, particularly if they wanted to stay with their pets, and they’re looking at other buildings. So the plan right now is really focused on keeping people within Yellowknife as opposed to evacuating them out of the territory. But you know, the city said that it has considered sort of all options and it’s really based on whatever the specific risks may be.

Jordan: What’s the forecast like for the next little while? Do we know if there’s any rain coming? Anything that might slow ’em?

Emily Blake: So I’m not sure about the forecast for the entire territory. I know in Yellowknife the forecast is that winds are supposed to change on Thursday and there could be a chance of rain. So that will hopefully slow that fire’s progression towards Yellowknife in Fort Smith. There was a little bit of precipitation earlier in the week that ended up slowing that fire, but they said, I think by today it’s supposed to be dry again. So that’s pretty concerning.

Jordan: Last question, I’ll just ask because I know, I know often national media coverage doesn’t come north. What’s one thing or anything that you like residents of Southern Canada to understand about what’s going on up there right now?

Emily Blake: I mean, there’s so much information that I’d love to give people about the Northwest Territories because I don’t think a lot of people in Southern Canada know a lot about the North or necessarily think a lot about the North. But you know, this is a place that people call home and this is a place that people love the same as anywhere else. And we’re Canadians. We care about our homes, we care about our communities, and this is just really shocking and devastating.

Jordan: Emily, thank you so much for this.

Emily Blake: Thank you

Jordan: Emily Blake reporting for Cabin Radio out of Yellowknife. That was The Big Story for more from us, including all those wildfire episodes that I mentioned off the top. You can head to The Big Story podcast.ca. You can do it later after your wildfire episode coming to you all by about 2040 probably. Unless we burn first. I’m just kidding. But you can find all of our episodes at The Big Story podcast.ca. You can talk to us anytime on Twitter. Still not calling it X at The Big Story Fpn. You can tell us how much you appreciate or don’t appreciate all these disaster episodes. And you can call and leave a voicemail, (416) 935-5935, the big stories available in every podcast player, and you can always find it on your smart speaker by asking it to play The Big Story podcast. Thanks for listening. I’m Jordan Heath Rawlings. We’ll talk tomorrow.