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The NWT’s wildfire agency says following “aggressive detection efforts” crews have not found any new fires burning in the South Slave region.
In a notice to travellers on Friday evening, NWT Fire said smoke in the area of Fort Smith, Fort Resolution and Hay River is due to a wildfire burning near a whooping crane nesting area in Wood Buffalo National Park.
In an update on Thursday evening, Parks Canada said the out-of-control wildfire, which was first detected on May 22, had grown to 16,788 hectares. It said the fire is burning approximately 27km northeast of Highway 5.
In a Friday evening update, NWT Fire said it is helping Parks Canada to combat the fire through air tanker support and staff have installed sprinklers in the Grand Detour area. It added that proactive structure protection will be set up for cabins north of Salt River.
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Gregg Walker, incident commander with Parks Canada, told Cabin Radio that while firefighters did a “very active initial attack” to try and stop the fire from spreading, hot, dry and windy conditions have contributed to its growth.
He said the fire is “fairly active” and expected to grow north.
“There’s going to be some smoke activity and some fire growth that people will see, and we hope then the weather will settle and give us more of an opportunity to actively suppress in the coming days,” he said.
Walker said fire crew have maps of the nesting locations and are employing “minimum impact suppression techniques,” to avoid causing additional harm to birds.
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“It’s the nesting locations of the whooping cranes at this time of year that are really the main concern in terms of protecting the eggs and the young of these of these magnificent birds,” he “We’re avoiding those both with our machinery and our aircraft to the extent that we safely can.”
He added that crews are using fire suppression efforts to limit the spread in those sensitive areas.
NWT Fire said extreme winds, low relative humidity and high temperatures in the North and South Slave regions are expected to continue through Saturday morning. It said while rain is forecast for the North Save overnight, that could come with lightning that could start new fires.
The Hamlet of Fort Resolution issued a fire ban on Friday evening
Claire MacFarlane contributed reporting.
