Firefighting season soon extinguished
Far fewer wildfires this year
John McFadden
Northern News Services
Monday, August 29, 2016
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
With the forest-fire season in the NWT apparently winding down, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (ENR) which oversees forest firefighting, is breathing a collective sigh of relief.
Officials and crews had been bracing for a third devastating season in a row, especially after a huge swath of Fort McMurray, in northern Alberta, was wiped off the map by a wildfire in early May.
However, for the most part the territory avoided the heartbreaking, tragic scenes in Fort Mac.
That's not to say the NWT escaped unscathed. Namushka Lodge, on Harding Lake about 50 kilometres east of Yellowknife, was lost to a massive, quickly moving fire on July 15. That same fire consumed a cabin on nearby Pickerel Lake. No one was hurt in either fire.
As of Aug. 27, there was only one four-person crew left fighting fires in the NWT, down from more than a dozen during the height of the season.
Those remaining firefighters are protecting assets at the Fortune Minerals NICO exploration camp about 50 kilometres north of Whati, said Amber Simpson, spokesperson for ENR.
That fire along with another one near the Snare hydro complex about 70 kilometres north of Behchoko continues to burn but both fires are essentially only being monitored to make sure they do not threaten any buildings, hydro poles or transmission lines or other assets, said Simpson.
The fire at Snare got the blame for several power outages over the course of the summer in the North Slave region as poles were burned and power lines came down.
The fire reached about 205 square kilometres in size. According to Pam Coulter, spokesperson for the NWT Power Corporation, which owns and operates four Snare facilities, 18 poles were lost to fire and three wooden transmission structures were damaged. A dollar total for the damage has yet to be released by the power corp.
Simpson said essentially those two fires will now be allowed to burn themselves out. She added the cooler nights and higher relative humidity will help that happen.
Simpson said the number of fires and the amount of land burned is down substantially from last year.
