Katie May
Northern News Services
Published Monday, July 21, 2008

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Drivers couldn't get in or out of Yellowknife for most of the day Saturday when a forest fire burning near Behchoko forced the closure of the only road out of the city.

The fire jumped the highway near North Arm Park overnight Saturday. As of Sunday morning the blaze spanned 16,000 hectares and billowed smoke across a 14 kilometre radius.

Department of Transportation officials closed Highway 3 at Behchoko Saturday morning and stationed highway workers with warning signs for outgoing traffic near Fred Henne Park parking lot, where some drivers had to turn around and wait out the fire. The highway was reopened Sunday at 6:40 a.m.

Douglas Needham, a former Yellowknife resident now living in Calgary, was one of those travellers. He and some friends had driven to the city for a visit during the Folk on the Rocks music festival and he'd planned to drive as far as Enterprise on Saturday evening and then down to Calgary in time for work on Monday morning.

"If I have to do that all in one day, it's going to be a long day," Needham said Saturday night, parked by the road closure sign. "My boss is not going to be happy."

Department of Transportation officials could not be reached for comment Sunday.

Judy McClinton, fire information officer with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, said crews have been working on the fire since last Friday. The crew's attempts to back burn along the fire's path to prevent it from spreading were unsuccessful and the fire continued to rage despite several drops by water bombers and Sunday morning rain.

McClinton said the department expects to send in two more NWT firefighting crews and she estimated that crews will be working on the fire until at least the end of this week.

"It's a complex fire because of the weather conditions, the fuel types and the terrain," she said.

The blaze, one of 119 currently burning within the territory, was started by lightning June 21 and was worsened by southeastern winds over the last week.