How the Highway 1 border wildfire is evolving

The past weekend saw another series of rolling closures along NWT Highway 1 near the territory’s southern border with Alberta.

Drivers in the area reported “zero visibility” along stretches of the highway on Saturday morning. A wildfire burned across the road at least once on Sunday.

This part of the territory has been besieged by fire for two consecutive summers.

This month alone, the NWT government’s Department of Infrastructure issued Facebook advisories for this section of the highway on August 10, 13, 18, 20 and 25.

Two heavy equipment contractors helping firefighters in the region described earlier this month having to drive through a wildfire escorting others to safety as conditions became extremely dangerous.

Last summer, the land surrounding a stretch of roughly 50 km of highway north of the Alberta border didn’t burn, as is shown in this detail from an NWT Fire burn area map for 2023.

At least one wildfire to the west of the highway overwintered, meaning it smouldered for months under what little snowpack existed in the South Slave this winter, then re-emerged once more in the spring.

Now, that fire is gradually eating through the unburned forest around the highway.

Whenever conditions are hot, dry and windy, the fire gets worse and disruption becomes more likely, either from fire or smoke.

This animation shows the progress of the fire over the past two and a half weeks. Red dots are hotspots detected by Nasa’s Fire Information for Resource Management System, known as Firms.

The fires burning near the highway are not expected to result in any threat to communities, as they are bordered by extensive burn areas from last year to the north, in the direction of Enterprise and Hay River.

On Sunday, NWT Fire said crews working on the fire are “focusing on protecting structures along the Hay River corridor from kilometre post 38 to kilometre post 52.”

“The South Slave will see strong winds and warmer temperatures for the next few days. These conditions may encourage increased fire and smoke activity,” the wildfire agency added.

Highways officers are monitoring visibility and will close the highway “with little to no notice” should conditions require it. (Check online before you travel.)

Steady rain is expected to wash through the border region on Tuesday, which should help to suppress fires near the road for at least a time.

Beyond that, temperatures in the vicinity of 20C forecast for the rest of the week – alongside largely sunny, dry weather – mean more fire-related disruption is possible at the end of August and into September.