Crews protect Taltson dam as nearby wildfires merge

Wildfires west of the South Slave’s key Taltson hydro dam have merged and closed to within 10 kilometres of the facility, with crews now working to protect it.

Four fires – SS019, SS034, SS040 and SS041 – have burned into each other on the opposite side of the Slave River from the dam.

Discovered a little under a week ago, they have together burned an estimated 94,000 hectares to date and have closed to within eight kilometres of the dam, though the Taltson River is also in the way.

On Wednesday evening, the NWT’s wildfire agency said it was planning burns of its own west of the river that are designed to burn off fuel, limit the fires’ growth to the south “and protect the dam.”

Ignition operations at the dam itself are already under way, NWT Fire stated, as are “extensive structure protection operations, with installation and maintenance of sprinklers to protect cabins and other values.”

Taltson is a major NWT power plant, providing electricity throughout the South Slave. It is also the focus of an ambitious – and costly – plan to run transmission lines from the dam to the North Slave, providing cheaper, greener power to the region.

However, the hydro facility is understood to be offline at the moment as renovation work is carried out.

Earlier this year, the NWT Power Corporation said that work would mean the South Slave using diesel generation from other facilities between May and November.

In 2022, the total cost of shutting down Taltson and renovating it was put at around $75 million.

The dam was originally built in 1965 and has served the entire South Slave since 1986.