Residents of Fort Good Hope have returned home following the lifting of the evacuation order implemented on June 15 due to nearby wildfire VQ001.
Flights back to Fort Good Hope from Norman Wells began boarding early on Saturday afternoon.
Leona Edgi and her children were on the first aircraft. She said the mood in Norman Wells noticeably shifted on Friday after local leaders announced the evacuation order was being lifted.
“I think everybody was just relieved.” said Edgi. “Everybody was just in a good mood. And at the airport, too, it was like, ‘Oh, we’re finally going home.'”
On landing in Fort Good Hope, Edgi said the pilot welcomed them home and everyone began to clap.
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“It felt really good.” said Edgi.
She said that even though the town of Norman Wells was welcoming, it was hard being away from home for so long. The evacuation order remained in place for three weeks.
“We were trying to make the best out of the situation, even though it was hard sometimes,” said Edgi.
She said her son was especially happy to be reunited with his dad, who had stayed behind in Fort Good Hope to help fight the wildfire and protect the community.
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When the fire was especially close to the community, Edgi’s husband asked her if there was anything from their house he should try to save.
Edgi told him that if the fire escalated, he should put some of their photos in a container and leave them on a rock near the road in effort to protect them.
Thankfully, it never came to that.
Edgi said she could see a lot of burned trees from the air as she flew home, but was relieved to find the town – and a lot of the trees surrounding the community – still intact.
“Before, we didn’t know if we were going to come back to anything,” said Edgi, who had previous expressed how grateful she is to all the firefighters from Fort Good Hope and those who came from elsewhere to help.
Jim Tobac spent the evacuation period travelling back and forth from a nearby fish camp – where some evacuees stayed – to Fort Good Hope, where he was supporting people who stayed in town.
Once the fire began to die down, Tobac was able to return home on Tuesday. He has seen videos online of people hugging and shaking hands upon their return.
“It’s been quite good to see everybody. There’s lots of happiness in town,” said Tobac.
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He, too, thanked the volunteers and firefighters who helped over the past three weeks.
In a Facebook post early on Sunday morning, Chief Collin Pierrot of Fort Good Hope wrote: “It feels so awesome to have everyone back home safely.”
“These past two weeks has been a rollercoaster of emotions, especially for crews that were struggling to work after the incident of the helicopter crash and sudden passing of a young friend, father, brother, uncle Harley Pierrot, having to deal with the two deaths,” Pierrot wrote, referring to both the loss of helicopter pilot Tom Frith – who was killed in an accident at the airport on June 28 – and the separate passing of a Fort Good Hope resident.
Firefighters continue to work on VQ001.
NWT Fire says enough has now been done for crews to be confident that the risk to Fort Good Hope is drastically reduced.
