This aerial photograph shows the fire near Bliss Lake, north of Prelude Lake last weekend. The fire, about 50 kilometres from Yellowknife, was started by lightning and was declared out on Monday afternoon. - photo courtesy of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources |
Forest fire near Yellowknife now out
Firefighting crews responded quickly on weekend to lightning-caused blaze
John McFadden
Northern News Services
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
A forest fire, believed to be the closest to Yellowknife city limits so far this season, was declared out Monday afternoon.
The small fire, about .03 of a square kilometre, was about 50 kilometres from the city near Bliss Lake - north of Prelude Lake - and was started by lightning last weekend.
Fire crews from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (ENR) were on it quickly.
They wanted to prevent it from moving south and approaching the Ingraham Trail, according to Richard Olsen, fire operations manager.
"I think there are some lodges in close proximity to it and it's about 15 to 20 kilometres north of the Ingraham Trail," Olsen said. "That's probably the driest part of the NWT right now so we're looking at that area pretty carefully. Even though we're getting near the end of July and we're starting to see a little more darkness at night we still have to be vigilant."
The threat to two lodges in the Hearne and Harding Lake area has now substantially diminished.
"They've done work around Namushka Lodge so the risk is very limited. The Hearne Lake Lodge - there was a previous fire history that prevented that," Olsen said. "We do have sprinklers set up on two other values to the west and north of the Hearne Lake fire location."
Olsen wasn't exactly sure what those values were, whether they were lodges or cabins.
The last of the dozens of Ontario firefighters who were helping in the NWT left this past weekend, Olsen said, adding that only NWT fire crews are currently batting wildfires in the territory.
"Compared to last year I think we're well ahead of the game. Things are looking really good," Olsen said.
The statistics back up what Olsen is saying about this year compared to last.
"To date, 205 fires in the NWT have burnt 534,000 hectares (5,304 square kilometres) compared to 243 fires at this time last year which had burned 903,000 hectares ( 9,030 square kilometres)," Olsen said. "But we are still well above 20-year historical averages. On that 20-year average we'd have 133 fires and 321,000 hectares (3,210 square kilometres) burned."
Of the 205 fires, 179 were caused by lightning, 12 are person-caused, 11 are holdovers from 2014 and two are coal seam fires, which is smouldering coal underground, Olsen said.
Yellowknife is not experiencing as many of the heavy smoke days like it did last summer, nor is it seeing the regular highway closures due to fires like as it did in 2014 or the number of power outages as last year due to fires.
It is not necessarily because of slightly cooler temperatures and a little more rain, Olsen said.
"One of the things that hasn't been materializing is the amount of lightning going through and starting fires. The majority of the lightning has been to the western areas (of the North Slave Region) up around Whati, Gameti and west of Behchoko - those areas," he said. "We haven't seen significant lightning events go through. It continues to be dry in those areas which suggests there hasn't been a lot of rainfall there."
On the NWTfire Facebook page, someone posted a photo of an unattended campfire near the Cameron River bridge on the Ingraham Trail. Olsen said that people need to take more responsibility for their actions.
"They need to consider the consequences of their actions and what they could lead to," Olsen said.
"It takes time and resources of our own people that we may need to save to save someone's life or save someone's property from a naturally-caused fire."
