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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
As 116 active wildfires in Northern Ontario continue to burn, Air Tindi is on call to help airlift residents of First Nations communities in the fire-scorched region.

Ontario's Ministry of Natural Resources approached the subsidiary of Discovery Air the week of July 18 to help with emergency evacuations from remote First Nations reserves threatened by forest fires.

Air Tindi sent a deHavilland Dash 7 and a crew of two pilots, a flight attendant and an engineer.

"Where we have the advantage with the Dash 7 is they are able to pull large numbers of people from the smaller gravel runways," said Trevor Wever, general manager for

Air Tindi Ltd.

"We can take up to as many as 46 people per flight in and out of a short gravel runway; most of the airplanes in Canada can't operate the same kind of loads on a short runway like we can. There aren't that many Dash 7 aircrafts around and we just happen to have three of them."

The Dash 7 was under contract with Diavik Diamond Mines Inc. but Wever said the mine was accommodating, allowing a change to its flight schedule to adjust for the absence of the Dash 7.

Ten reserves in Northern Ontario were evacuated - four fully and six partially; a total of 3,438 people were airlifted to other communities. As of July 22, the evacuees had begun to return home. The first to return were the 153 evacuees from Mishkeegogamang First Nation, 350 km northwest of Thunder Bay, on July 27.

With the first crew from Air Tindi rotating out for time off, another crew has replaced them. Air Tindi has also received a tentative request for additional support from the Ontario government and is keeping a Beechcraft 1900 on stand by.

"It is not an emergency situation but they do want to get people back into their home communities as quickly as they can. I think their challenge is right now they don't have as many airplanes available with the repatriation than with the evacuation," said Wever.

Wever said all the crew involved has been enthusiastic to help.

"All of our people have Northern hospitality so whenever anyone needs help they are ready to go," said Wever.

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