SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
A fishing lodge on Harding Lake, about 50 kilometres east of Yellowknife, remained under threat from a wildfire as of yesterday afternoon.

This screenshot from a video taken last Saturday shows a fire on Harding Lake, not far from the Namushka Lodge, 50 kilometres from the city. Firefighters were working on the fire which was about two kilometres from the lodge yesterday. - photo courtesy of Facebook

The fire remains about two kilometres south of Namushka Lodge according Judy McLinton, communications manager for the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (ENR).

"The fire is about 3,800 hectares (38 square kilometres) in size and about two-dozen firefighters are currently working on it. They are building a fire break in preparation for a backburn operation on Wednesday, weather permitting," McLinton said. "The wind is working in their favour today."

She would not share with Yellowknifer what the department is telling people at the lodge about the fire, other than ENR is working on it. McLinton would not discuss any evacuation plans.

"You'll have to talk to the lodge owners about that," she said.

A backburn operation is a controlled burn set by crews in front of the fire to remove fuel from it so that it burns back on itself.

"We've added extra protection with sprinklers," said Frank Lepine, ENR's director of forest management on Monday. "The lodge itself has also done some work on the fire guard."

The fire is in between Hearne and Harding Lake but ENR is calling Hearne because it's more familiar to people, Lepine said.

"We took action on this fire two weeks ago but we pulled people and resources off that fire and moved them to the Snare hydro fire with a plan to re-evaluate the Hearne Lake fire," Lepine said. "There are only a few values in between Harding and Hearne. Where the values are is north of the fire when you get into that Reid Lake country where there are a lot of values. We want to restrict the growth to the north and protect the values there."

'Values' refers to buildings and infrastructure.

Crews are working with the lodge and there is a lot of communication back and forth to make sure the lodge is safe, Lepine said.

Lodge owner Bryan Chorostkowski declined to share what exactly is going on at the lodge with the media.

"I am putting it on Facebook and everyone is following that. We've talked about it as a family and that's our position," Chorostkowski said.

"Before this, the people who were on my Facebook page were just friends, family and a few guests and I was keeping them informed. I never really realized this would spread faster than the wildfire itself."

The lodge has been in the family for more than 30 years. Chorostkowski described it as a cherished family lodge.

Namushka is described as a self-catered, fly-in fishing and outdoor adventure lodge on its website. It sleeps 14 guests. It is not clear how many, if any, guests are currently at the lodge.

Lepine said that it is still very early in the fire season and added ENR needs another six weeks until there is nightfall and cooler conditions at night which

will help fire crews.

There about 85 firefighters from outside the territory helping out, with the majority from Ontario, Lepine said.

"What that does is give us an opportunity to recycle our crews to make sure they have a weekend off. Our general rules of days off is that they have to have every third weekend off. Right now everyone is working to their maximum. No one is permitted to work beyond 19 days in a row if they are on a fire operation."

Canada is on level five, which is the highest level its ever been on, according

to Lepine.

"Canada is looking at importing resources from Australia and New Zealand right now.

"Alberta has a number of firefighters from Mexico in. Canada is also assessing fire crews from South Africa. There are very few resources available, so we're looking internationally for help, including aircraft."

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