NWT extends total fire ban across North and South Slave

The NWT government has extended the largest fire ban the territory has ever imposed, a ban that now covers almost all of the North Slave and South Slave.

The territory has already used a provision buried in the Forest Protection Act to declare nearly all of the South Slave a closed district, barring the use of any kind of open fire outdoors, including in a fireplace or fire pit, at a campsite, or an open stove or grill.

On Friday afternoon, the GNWT renewed that ban in the South Slave and extended it to cover the North Slave.

While individual communities have often issued fire bans in the past, this is the first time the territory has triggered Forest Protection Act powers to do the same across whole regions.

The South Slave ban is being extended until at least August 4 “as the result of continued extreme wildfire danger and extraordinary weather conditions,” the territory stated. The North Slave ban similarly runs until August 4, at which point it’ll either be terminated or an extension will be announced.

The ban covers all public and private land in the North Slave, and all of the South Slave from the west of the Slave River at Fort Smith up to Fort Resolution, then stretching east to the border with the Dehcho.

You can still use closed stoves, closed barbecues, closed furnaces, and CSA or ULC-approved gas and propane barbecues. You can also use fire if you’re exercising Aboriginal or treaty rights like cooking or hide-tanning.

There are 146 active wildfires across the NWT as of late Friday. More than 1.3 million hectares of land have burned.