Aircraft began ferrying Fort Good Hope residents home on Saturday as the community started to recover from a three-week wildfire-related evacuation.
Fort Good Hope was evacuated on June 15 over nearby wildfire VQ001, which began as an abandoned campfire.
On Saturday, the NWT government said that evacuation order had been formally lifted by the community.
Some aspects of Saturday’s airlift home were moved up. Flights originally expected to depart later in the afternoon were due to leave shortly after noon, the Town of Norman Wells – one of the reception centres for evacuees – said on its Facebook page.
The GNWT said flights would continue until approximately 8pm.
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Chief Collin Pierrot, in a message of his own, called for people already in Fort Good Hope to head to the airport and welcome home returning residents. At noon, he said the first 10 evacuees returning from another Sahtu community, Délı̨nę, had just departed on the journey home.
Wildfire VQ001 is still burning, but NWT Fire says enough has been done to be confident that the risk to Fort Good Hope is drastically reduced. Firefighters continue to work on the fire.
