Wrigley under evacuation order, only highway closes

Wrigley has become the second Dehcho community under an evacuation order because of a nearby wildfire, joining Fort Simpson.

An alert issued at 10:50am on Monday told residents to report to the band office. Melissa Hardisty, the Pehdzéh Kı̨́ First Nation’s senior administrator, said the NWT government had instructed the community to evacuate.

By 4:30pm, Highway 1 from Wrigley all the way to the Checkpoint intersection east of Fort Simpson had closed down because of wildfire activity. When the route would reopen was not clear. By that point, many residents had already driven out or boarded aircraft to safety.

At 2pm on Monday, NWT Fire told Cabin Radio wildfire FS015 was 12 km north of Wrigley.

“The main concern is that we’re going to have another significant fire activity day. It’s very dry. The wind is going to shift to northwesterly. That’s going to push smoke into the community. It’s going to lead to some poor visibility,” said fire information officer Shannon Graf by phone.

“That said, our crews are continuing to work really, really hard on this. The fire may grow towards Wrigley, which is our biggest concern. We do have an Alberta-based incident management team that has been deployed. They’re going to be coordinating all the firefighting actions.”

Graf said the wind shift will make it impossible for crews to be positioned in front of the fire, but helicopters and tankers will continue aerial drops.

“If we do have the chance to get our crews back out there safely, we’re absolutely going to do that,” said Graf. “They’re experts at this, they’re going to be working on holding that line.”

Alert to order

Hardisty said Fort Smith is the designated host community, and Fort Smith’s senior administrator confirmed arrangements are being made to welcome evacuees.

The NWT’s Department of Municipal and Community Affairs said Fort Smith – at least a 10-hour drive away in the territory’s southeast, involving travel past Hay River – had been chosen because it is able to accommodate evacuees from a community the size of Wrigley, which has about 135 residents.

“If there were to be more evacuations, we might need the larger capacity that Hay River offers,” a spokesperson stated, explaining how Fort Smith had been chosen.

In Wrigley, some frustration was expressed at the lead-up to the evacuation order.

“Everybody knew that there was a fire close by and everybody was just watching. We really couldn’t do very much. People can personally prepare themselves, right? But we weren’t given an order from Maca to say that we were on alert,” Hardisty told Cabin Radio on Monday.

“If they had given us the alert yesterday, then our community members would have been ready. We would have had everybody registered. But we didn’t have that time. There was like a 15-minute window between an alert to evacuation.”

Jay Boast, an information officer for the Territorial Emergency Management Organization that the GNWT oversees, characterized the evacuation order as a decision mutually agreed upon.

“There was a meeting with NWT Fire, regional representatives of the emergency management organization and band leadership, and at that meeting it was decided – with the information that they had on the conditions both around Wrigley and with transportation, the highways, etc – that it was in the best interest of the safety of the community that they be evacuated,” said Boast.

“That recommendation was given and was accepted by the band council. They also declared a local state of emergency, and at that point the order was executed, and the logistics of having people evacuated was actioned, and that is continuing to happen currently.”

Multiple fires

While fire FS015 to the north has been the most visible in recent days, there are multiple wildfires burning in the vicinity of Wrigley.

Aside from its airstrip, the only way out of Wrigley – the terminus of Highway 1 – is to drive east along a road that requires passing by Fort Simpson, itself under an evacuation order because of a wildfire that has burned closer to the highway.

The road either side of Fort Simpson is also imperilled by active fires, many of which sprang up in recent days as lightning moved over the Dehcho region. Crews worked late into Sunday to keep Highway 1 open for Fort Simpson evacuees as fire FS014 threatened the road near the Checkpoint intersection.

Highway 7, south from Checkpoint toward Fort Liard and BC, remains closed because of other fires as of 4:45pm on Monday.

Fire FS015 was burning 12 km north of Wrigley as of Sunday evening. At that time, winds were pushing it away from the community.