Darren Campbell
Northern News Services

NNSL (Aug 14/98) - Reports of the partial evacuation of Salmon Arm, B.C. because of forest fires has caught the attention of the nation.

And even though the recent onslaught of rain in Yellowknife has offered a respite from the local forest fire activity, it was pretty serious here, too.

While there was never any threat of the city being evacuated because of the fires in the area the same can't be said for the Ingraham Trail.

As fires like the one at Tibbitt Lake went out of control, residents with homes and cabins around Prelude and Pontoon Lake were encouraged to leave.

Checkpoints were set up on the trail and travel was restricted past Powder Point during the threat.

But considering it has been wild fire season, what would be the plans to evacuate Yellowknife if it was necessary?

David Nicklen, director of public safety for the city, said the chances of Yellowknife being evacuated are remote.

"The forestry people tell me the trees aren't large enough around Yellowknife that there would be any forest fire they couldn't control," said Nicklen.

But if an evacuation was necessary, a state of local emergency would have to be declared by the department of municipal and community affairs.

At that point the city, the Emergency Measures Organization of MACA, and the department of health and social services would take over the evacuation effort.

The first order of business would be to get a registry of the people in the city, find out who is leaving the town and where they are going. They would also need numbers from them where they could be reached once they got there. Then those that have to be evacuated for health reasons would be sent out first.

Evacuating 18,000 people is a huge task and if it was done Nicklen said it would have to be to a place where they could handle that many people. He said the likely places would be Edmonton or Grande Prairie.

However, not everybody would leave the city. Nicklen said some Yellowknifers with special skills -- in areas like firefighting, or heavy equipment operating -- might want to stay and help in the firefighting effort.

For residents who live full-time on the Ingraham Trail or have cabins there, the threat of evacuation was very real. The fire burned down three cabins on Tibbitt Lake. Eric Bussey, director of emergency services division for MACA, who was in charge of evacuation plans on the trail, said one of his big problems was getting an accurate list of all the people who lived out there.

"It was a bit of a challenge," said Bussey.

"Some of the records weren't always current. A lot of it was done door-to-door."

He said they had two gyms set aside for people who needed a place to stay due to an evacuation. But they were looking for people out there to make their own plans for a place to stay.

Bussey said what the fire scare taught him was that the agencies fighting fires can never give the public enough information about what is happening and what they are doing.

"People don't want just the good news," said Bussey. "They want serious and accurate information."