Inuvik (July 04/03) - A series of lightning strikes combined with hot, dry weather had NWT fire crews scrambling to Inuvik to fight a blaze that rolled dangerously close to town.

What started as a small fire heading in the direction of an old burn, grew into a 2,000 hectare blaze that was rapidly approaching the airport and properties at Shell Lake.

Mike Gravel, manager of forests for Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development said the last month has been hot and dry. There were no fires in the region until last Wednesday, when a dry lightning storm made over 1,000 strikes in the area.

"We picked up 11 fires in one day," Gravel said. Many of the fires were located near Tsiigehtchic, and Fort McPherson.

"We had to redirect our resources from this fire to that fire and it just snowballed after that," Gravel said.

Fires four and five were close to McPherson and Tsiigehtchic and Gravel said they were juggling crews and resources at those fires when fire six flared up just outside Inuvik.

"We had to divert some resources to that fire and by the time we got to it, it was already 10 hectares in size, which is fairly large for one crew and one helicopter," he said.

Shortly after that, fires seven and eight flared up and crews were spread thin and pilots had exhausted their flying time for the day.

"We had to make a decision that there wasn't anything we could do with (fire six) that night, so we decided to fight fire eight, which was just south of town," he said.

Fire eight was easily accessible and was quickly extinguished, but overnight, the wind changed at fire six blowing the fire south away from a previous burn into a dry fuel source, which turned the blaze rapidly south towards Inuvik.

"It was very intense," he said. "Especially at 2:00 in the morning to see a fire rolling like that."

"It's not something that you'd always expect," he said. "Mother Nature was against us from the get-go."

They kept ground crews off fire six until they had the air support of four deHavilland 215s and two DC-4 tankers that were enroute to Inuvik when the first fires broke out.

When it became evident Friday that there was a real threat to the airport and properties, home owners at Shell Lake were notified and sprinklers were set up outside their homes.

Fire crew boss Allan Farcy has been an Emergency Firefighter (EFF) for ten years. He and his crew from Fort Providence were flown in Friday to fight fire six.

"When we first got here it was really hot and moving fast," Farcy said.

His crew set up a pump at a nearby lake and ran a hose around the fire's jagged perimeter.

"On these fingers, we just wet it down and pulled back," he said. "It would jump right across; we'd water it down, it would flare right back up."

The fire was five kilometres. from the highway and about 10 kms from Inuvik when the water bombers and ground crews halted the advance. About 2,000 hectares had been burned. Gravel said the season is still early and they will likely have more fires with at least six weeks of fire season left.

"You get one of these fires a season but unfortunately for us, we had three or four all at the same time," he said. "This was a close call and it's not over yet."

As of Tuesday, the nine fires in the region had been contained and mopping up had begun. The tankers and other resources have been moved south to battle other fires and Gravel is grateful for the work the crews did while here.

"The people that worked the fire did a great job of it and we were fortunate to have them here," Gravel said.

"Visibility was zero across the head of the fire, so they couldn't even see where this fire was going, but they were still able to go in there and work it."