Man questions whether lessons were learned during the 2014 fire season
Moraine Point Lodge owner Rodney Kenny
suggests improvements are lacking
John McFadden
Northern News Services
Wednesday, July 27, 2016
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
A Yellowknife man, whose cherished family lodge was lost to wildfire fire in 2014, said he is not sure if the Department of Environment and Natural Resources has learned anything from the devastating forest fire season two years ago.
Rodney Kenny, whose family owned Moraine Point Lodge on Great Slave Lake about 110 kilometres southwest of Yellowknife, said he is closely following the story of Namushka Lodge. The lodge, located on Harding Lake, about 50 kilometres east of Yellowknife, was destroyed by a forest fire on July 15. He also said he has been reading media reports about a fire in 2014 that consumed a homestead known as the Hoarfrost Lodge, owned by the Olesen family on the East Arm of Great Slave Lake.
A report, commissioned by the department, states staff were using outdated satellite imagery and thought that the fire was further away from the property than it actually was.
Kenny said he does not know if old maps were part of the reason firefighters were not able to save his lodge when fire surrounded it a few weeks after the Hoarfrost Lodge was lost.
"I read in the newspaper that there was some outdated data or a time delay of some sort," Kenny said. "I'm very interested in knowing what exactly that means. What are you using and how was it outdated? And how did that affect any or all the fire situations?"
Kenny said that after his lodge was burned, he tried in vain to arrange a meeting with the then-minister of Environment and Natural Resources (ENR) Michael Miltenberger. He said that meeting never happened, leaving him with more questions than answers about the fire that destroyed his lodge.
"They offered representatives. But that isn't what we were looking for. We wanted a meeting with the minister to ask him questions in person. If he didn't know the answer he would at least try to get one for us. We wanted to get it from the horse's mouth," he said.
Unlike the Olesen fire and the Namushka Lodge fire, there was no one staying at the Moraine Point Lodge when it was burned. Kenny said he was in constant contact with ENR officials at the time to remind them where the lodge was. They reassured him according to Kenny but eventually they called him to say the lodge had been lost to fire. Kenny did not want to talk about whether he is seeking compensation from the territorial government but said he is still wondering if anything positive has come from the two major losses of two years ago.
"I don't know if there were lessons learned from the 2014 fires. If there were why weren't they put into practice in 2016," Kenny said.
In a report obtained by the media last week, it was revealed that ENR admitted to mistakes during the Olesen home fire. The report states that firefighters did not immediately respond to the fire because they thought it was further away than it actually was.
According to Richard Olsen, manager of fire operations for ENR, a specific report was done on the Moraine Point Lodge fire. He added it is not a public report. Kenny said he had never seen it and wondered how a report could have been done on the fire that destroyed his lodge without him ever receiving a copy of it.
Olsen said the report is attainable but only through an Access to Information request.
He disagreed with Kenny's assertions that the department hadn't learned valuable lessons from the 2014 fire season.
"ENR has taken the recommendations quite seriously and has moved forward ... some to completion and some are still in the works," Olsen said. "We are still trying to work on addressing areas of how to better communicate, especially in our kind of environment where isolated locations are a long ways from communities and the resources that are necessary."
ENR has received blistering criticism on social media for its communication, or lack thereof, with the Chorostkowski family of Yellowknife, the owners of the Namushka Lodge. In a posting to Facebook last Friday, the lodge owners refuted what ENR had told the media.
"On Thursday, ENR ... again said there was contact made before the fire reached the lodge," the post stated.
"What a bunch of (BS). I even called down to ENR and ... nobody answers. This whole incident just reeks of the similarities of the Hoarfrost fire. I have nothing but respect for the men and women on the front lines ... But I have absolutely no respect for a government department that flat out lies and won't even talk to me face-to-face or over the phone to explain their actions. Cabin and lodge owners: You are on your own," the post stated.
The cause of the Namushka Lodge fire and ENR's handling of it remain under investigation by Edmonton-based Dennis Quintilio and Associates, the same consulting firm that did the report of the Hoarfrost Lodge fire. Frank Lepine, forest management director with ENR said the report should be out in a couple of weeks but will not likely be made public.
The fire is suspected to be person-caused, according to ENR officials. They believe it started at or near a cabin on Pickerel Lake about 15 kilometres from Namushka Lodge. The cabin was also destroyed. The fire continues to burn and as of yesterday was listed at 64 square kilometres in size.
Judy McLinton, spokesperson for ENR said that social media postings do not affect how they go about their jobs.
"I've been in the business a long time. We are professionals. There are often things that happen and people can make statements wherever," McLinton said. "We don't take it personally. We know what our jobs are and we continue to do them to the best of our ability."
