Territory’s fire crews plan earlier start to tackle holdover fires

Northwest Territories wildfire staff and equipment will be readied earlier than usual this year because a significant number of fires have continued to burn through the winter.

Responding to questions in the legislature from Sahtu MLA Danny McNeely, environment minister Jay Macdonald said climate change and an extended period of drought had “certainly shown us the need to be proactive.”

He said holdover fires – those that continue to smoulder in the undergrowth and beneath the snowpack throughout the winter, despite the cold – had been identified as “potential challenges for the early spring.”

The Department of Environment and Climate Change “has planned to bring our staff and resources on earlier in the spring, to ensure we’re prepared and ready to address any of the existing fires that were held over,” Macdonald said.

“There’s a plan to do aerial as well as drone scanning early in the spring, as well as having staff on the ground also doing assessments.”

The first wildfire that needed a response in the territory last year was a holdover fire northeast of Fort Smith that had grown to one hectare in size by the start of May.

So far, there have been no reports of major disruption involving any NWT fires that continued to burn through the winter of 2023-24.

The exact number of holdover fires isn’t clear, not least because any that can’t be seen from the ground are highly unlikely to be picked up by air or provide enough of a hotspot for satellites to detect during the winter months.

Macdonald did note that a holdover fire at Paradise Gardens, south of Hay River, had been addressed “because there was significant smoke bellowing from there that was bothering some of the residents.” McNeely said residents had reported several fires continuing to burn around the winter road south of Tulita.

Ministers meet over drought

Meanwhile, Dehcho MLA Sheryl Yakeleya said the drought affecting large areas of the NWT was reaching the point where “our government needs to respond to this.”

Some lakes and rivers remain at record low levels, a factor that could contribute to another severe fire season.

“We would require extremely high rainfall amounts across a large geographic area to increase our water levels at this point,” Macdonald acknowledged.

The Hay River’s Alberta basin is one of more than 50 in the province under some form of water shortage advisory, as are the Peace and Athabasca basins.

Macdonald said he met with his Alberta counterpart, Rebecca Schulz, last week to discuss the two jurisdictions’ shared drought concerns.

Alberta has already requested that municipalities use less water this coming year.

Asked by Yakeleya if the NWT will tell its residents to conserve water, Macdonald said: “Any decisions on water conservation would be informed by our snowpack assessments that we do annually and water levels of source rivers.”