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Deline evacuees return home Nathalie Heiberg-Harrison Northern News Services Published Monday, July 18, 2011
For three nights, 107 elders, young children and people with respiratory problems who had fled from the community had been staying in hotels across Yellowknife in case a forest fire, burning just 12 km north of the Deline, got any worse. "It's such a sense of relief with everybody that they're home and they're home safe," said Christina Gaudet, Deline's SAO. The fire, now 190 hectares in size, is still labelled as "out of control," according to Judy McLinton, manager of public affairs and communications for the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, but the south side is now contained. Three helicopters and 25 firefighters have been deployed to fight the fire's north side. Residents in the Sahtu community were first alerted of the fire last Sunday night after it had grown to 150 hectares in size in little over an hour. Fire crews were sent to the site to fight the out of control fire, which was sparked by lightning at 5 p.m. July 10. Four water bombers, two air attack planes, five firefighting crews, three helicopters and an incident command team were dispatched to the community. SAO Gaudet assembled the community's emergency operations committee and the local health centre began contacting residents on the evacuation priority list at 8:30 p.m. that evening to put them on standby. At 11:15 p.m., after the Department of Environment and Natural Resources updated them on the firefighting effort and dry weather conditions, the committee decided to move ahead with the evacuation. A state of emergency was declared just past midnight. The first evacuation flight, carrying elders, people with respiratory problems and their escorts, left for Yellowknife at just past 2:30 a.m. Gaudet credits their swift action to the fact the community has been practising its emergency responses for the past two months. "The community has shown so much support through this time of need. Nobody was panicking. Everybody just had a cool sense and it just went smoothly," she said.
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