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Four homes have been lost to the Behchokǫ̀ wildfire, the NWT’s wildfire agency now says, revising its earlier figure of five.
At lunchtime on Thursday, NWT Fire said two additional homes were understood to have burned in Rae after three were reported lost on Wednesday.
But at 5:45pm, the agency revised its figure, saying the total number of homes burned now stands at only four.
Conditions were helpful for firefighters throughout Thursday, the agency said,
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Highway 3 was closed again between Behchokǫ̀ and Yellowknife shortly before 2pm on Thursday. One driver said vehicles at a roadblock approaching Behchokǫ̀ were ordered to turn around as a quickly moving wildfire approached the road.
The highway later reopened after 6pm.
The fire, labelled ZF015, had not crossed Frank Channel toward Edzo as of Thursday evening. Efforts are now being made to protect Yellowknife in case the wind changes direction, and work continues to build a perimeter around Rae.
Twenty firefighters from Ontario are coming in to help.
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Three Rae homes were lost overnight between Tuesday and Wednesday. By Wednesday night, fire ZF015 had reached but not crossed Frank Channel, meaning Edzo is so far untouched, but all residents have been ordered to leave.
Only essential personnel remain behind, NWT minister Julie Green said on Wednesday.
On this page, we provided live text updates throughout Thursday. Scroll down for the latest – the newest information appears first.
Cabin Radio staff contributing to this coverage included Emily Blake, Megan Miskiman, Sarah Pruys, Chloe Williams and Ollie Williams.
If you have information, photos or video you’d like to share, get in touch with us: email the newsroom or send a message on Facebook.
We're concluding Thursday's live coverage. Thanks to all of our team for their reporting and to everyone who has sent in photos, video and information throughout the day.
On Friday, we'll run live coverage if the situation is serious enough to merit it. Regardless, we'll have the latest news on our site throughout the day and into the weekend.
Have a good evening and stay safe.
OK, the latest NWT Fire updates on other fires were less overwhelming than initially thought. Most of the updates are of work continuing. The new fire outside Inuvik is put at 30 km away rather than 45 km by the GNWT, but is still not considered a threat. You can read the updates over here in full.
The GNWT has just amended the text, so the highway is now 100-percent confirmed open.
That's good news for Jason Card, who was stuck with 16 dogs in a truck in Edzo all afternoon and was looking for helping getting them to safety.
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Highway 3 between Yellowknife and Behchokǫ̀ has reopened. The GNWT highway conditions map shows the highway as yellow (meaning open) even though the text around it says closed, and Tłı̨chǫ Government staff on the other side say the highway is now open.
NWT Fire has just spat out a string of updates on many fires that feels overwhelming but unfortunately it's my job to try to make it whelming so stand by.
Inuvik has just put out a notice saying a wildfire reported 45 km from the town is currently not a threat.
"Briefly, the Town of Inuvik is aware of the fire. GNWT and Town of Inuvik have met to review our respective emergency response plans," an email from the town's fire chief reads.
"We are both prepared to take necessary action. We are in daily and as required contact. Public notices will be posted as required."
We'll come back to that shortly.
Here's a summary of NWT Fire's evening update:
- Number of burned Rae homes revised down to four, not five
- Fire has now burned 114,000 hectares
- Winds were lighter but still large flare-ups (all taken care of)
- Most of today's efforts focused on protecting Rae
- Some air tanker effort aimed at building protection of Yellowknife
- More than 30 km of Highway 3 has now been burned over
Most of the update involves things we reported earlier that remain true. For example, the fire hasn't crossed Frank Channel and Edzo is still OK.
Here's more detail on the Yellowknife action being taken:
"Air tanker action continued on the southeast corner of the fire, closest to Yellowknife. We’re working from that corner to the north, towards area burned in 2014, building a line of fire retardant to prevent or slow growth of the fire towards Yellowknife, should the winds shift to the west in the future."
The exact quote from NWT Fire: "We made an error – two additional homes were not lost. Four homes have been lost – all of which were lost during the fire’s initial approach to Rae, one of which was confirmed today. We apologize for the error and any confusion it caused for folks already going through so much."
There's a new NWT Fire update out and you know what, it has actual genuinely good news in it: only four homes have been lost in Rae, not five as the wildfire agency previously reported.
The conditions were favourable all day, and nothing new has burned.
I'll have a longer summary shortly, but you know what, scrubbing one home off the list of things that burned feels like a win, right?
As promised, here's an update on the algal bloom reported in Yellowknife this week. Long story short, the wildfires remain the headline. The algal bloom is unlikely to be a big threat.
