Highway 3 fires are source of Yellowknife’s orange evening

The sky over Yellowknife turned orange with wildfire smoke on Wednesday evening. The source? Fires burning beside Highway 3 south of Behchokǫ̀.

Fire smoke tracking websites show the smoke blowing east from fire ZF017 and primary ZF015, which has been burning for weeks beside the road that connects Yellowknife and Behchokǫ̀ to the south.

Pilot cars were being deployed at times on Wednesday to help people through those fires and the associated smoke.

Wednesday’s orange skies came exactly 11 years after one of the most infamous days of 2014’s fire season in the NWT.

On July 30, 2014 – also a Wednesday – Yellowknife experienced a storm mixed with wildfire smoke that turned the sky practically black for a time.