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The area burned by wildfires across the Northwest Territories this year has now surpassed that of the infamous summer of 2014.
A decade ago, 385 wildfires burned roughly 3.4 million hectares of land, making it the territory’s worst wildfire season on record.
The NWT government said it spent $56.1 million (in 2014 dollars, equivalent to about $70 million today) fighting fires in 2014. That year, the community of Kakisa was evacuated. Until they had to endure 2023, Yellowknife residents called 2014 the “summer of smoke.”
This year, according to NWT Fire, 280 fires have so far burned more than 3.5 million hectares.
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A dozen NWT communities have had to evacuate due to wildfire threats this year, with nearly 70 percent of the territory’s population affected. In the case of Hay River and the Kátł’odeeche First Nation, each has had to evacuate twice this summer.
Fire damage to several communities has been unprecedented. To date that includes:
- more than a dozen Kátł’odeeche First Nation buildings and the band office;
- 19 structures burned either in Behchokǫ̀ or along Highway 3 to the east of the community;
- cabins outside Tulita;
- cabins near Duncan Lake;
- the majority of homes and buildings in Enterprise;
- properties in Paradise Gardens and the Patterson Road area south of Hay River;
- two cabins and a travel trailer on Hay River’s western periphery; and
- a home in Sambaa K’e burned in an ignition operation gone wrong.
The NWT legislature recently approved increasing the territory’s fire suppression budget to $100 million for this year. That doesn’t include the full cost of managing related evacuations and financial assistance, which finance minister Caroline Wawzonek has said will also be in the millions.
That sum also does not account for disaster assistance, a program backed by federal dollars that provides funding to address uninsured property damage.
