SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
As Yellowknifers again awoke to a strong smell of forest fire smoke yesterday, their phone, cable and Internet services continue to be threatened.

In a news release Northwestel spokesperson Adriann Kennedy stated that a wildfire along Highway 3 south of Behchoko is posing a threat to telecommunications services including phone, data, Internet, television and wireless service in Yellowknife. No services had been impacted by press time and a plan is in place to reduce the impact of any damage caused by the fire, she stated.

Technicians are standing by and will assess the situation once it is safe to proceed, stated Kennedy. If the lines are impacted, the plan includes transferring some communications traffic from the fibre line to radio connections.

An air quality statement was released for the Yellowknife region late yesterday afternoon by Environment Canada. The air quality index was 10 out of 10, which is considered "high risk."

"A large area of smoke from forest fires over the NWT is creating smoky conditions. Visibilities have been reduced to less than two kilometres in some areas and air quality is poor in many areas due to smoke," it stated.

"Smoke near the ground may cause potentially high health risk conditions. The smoke is expected to persist over the next couple of days as winds remain light and little or no precipitation is expected to flush out the smoke and haze."

The only route south out of Yellowknife was closed twice due a fire about 60 kilometres south of Behchoko on the weekend. Highway 3 was closed between Behchoko and Fort Providence from just after 3 p.m. until just before 9:30 p.m. on Saturday and again from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. on Sunday.

"Sunday's closure was a planned one for fire operations with ENR," said Nick Hurst, communications co-ordinator for the Department of Transportation. "Saturday's was not planned in advance. It was due to low visibility due to smoke and unsafe driving conditions as the fire itself was close to the highway."

The fire containment work that was planned for Sunday had to be postponed due to weather conditions, Olsen said. He added that crews were hoping to get back at it on Monday.

Fort Simpson resident Shaun Ouellette was heading home from Yellowknife and drove through the fire zone shortly before the road was closed.

"We saw the smoke for quite some time and we were wondering from a distance how close it would be to the road. But as we got closer we saw that the fire was actually on both sides of the road," Ouellette. "Going in it just looked foggy so there was no hesitation going in, but then it got darker."

It was never scary. It was just interesting to have that experience, Ouellette said.

"When we were right inside of it, where there was a lot of flames, we slowed down to have a look and it was really hot. We proceeded quite quickly after that."

1,820 kilometres burned

There have been 158 fires so far this year in the NWT. One-hundred-and-twenty-nine of those are still burning, according to Richard Olsen, manager of fire operations with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. One-thousand-eight-hundred-and-twenty square kilometres have burned, Olsen said.

"Last week there were 75 new fires. It's was a really busy week," said Olsen. "By comparison to our 20-year average, we would normally expect 66 fires at this time of year."

There have been 17 fires in the North Slave region as of Monday and 54 fires in the South Slave, Olsen said.

"We have brought in 40 firefighters from Ontario in addition to a fire-behaviour specialist and we are looking at other specialized resources to bring in specifically people who can help with the risk to communities and our experts in structure protection," Olsen said. Over the weekend, provinces in Western Canada experienced more than 600 fires.

"We have asked for additional resources to assist us but there are other provinces that are in dire need of resources. The NWT will be receiving no other crews at this time but that could change by the end of the week," said Frank Lepine, associate director of forest management for ENR.

He added a number firefighters in the NWT are nearing the end of their duty and will have to be given some time off to rest.

A fire near Hearne Lake also caught the attention of people who were out the Ingraham Trail over the weekend.

"There was some indication over the weekend of smoke reports near Reid Lake," Olsen said.

"But what people were actually seeing was a fire further away at Hearne Lake, probably about 30 kilometres from Reid Lake.

That fire is not believed to be threatening any structures.

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