Advertisement.
Fort Simpson evacuees awaited news of their home village’s safety first thing on Tuesday after a night that threatened to bring a wildfire closer to their community.
Video footage from the village golf course early on Monday evening showed a wall of smoke and flame near Fort Simpson, but a shift in conditions saw the fire ease off after 8pm. Late on Monday, village officials said that shift had been expected and, as of 9:30pm, there were no reports of damaged buildings or spot fires.
NWT Fire had said the potential existed overnight for conditions to evolve and possibly drive fire FS016 farther toward the village. Just after 7am on Tuesday, Fort Simpson Mayor Les Wright told the CBC he understood the fire had come within a kilometre of the village in places but added he had yet to drive around the village and fully inspect the fire’s progress.
Fort Simpson has been under an evacuation order since Sunday evening. On Monday evening, some of the last residents to leave the community did so in a nightmare drive through otherwise closed roads lined in parts by wildfires.
Advertisement.
Advertisement.
Those who stayed behind were ordered to shelter in place.
While the fire’s early-evening eruption died down before reaching the village, concern remained heading into the night that outlying areas next to the forest could be vulnerable. Crews were placed to defend structures where possible in the Wildrose and Bannockland sections of the community.
“There’s still a lot of fire that is now a lot closer to town,” said FS016 fire information officer Forrest Tower on Monday evening, stressing remaining residents still needed “to pay attention and have a lot of awareness.”
Highway 1 east of the Checkpoint intersection with Highway 7, and Highway 7 itself heading south from that intersection, each remain closed as of 6am on Tuesday.
Advertisement.
Advertisement.
Majority of Wrigley evacuates
In Wrigley, where an evacuation order was issued on Monday, there was no initial suggestion that fire FS015 had moved meaningfully nearer the community overnight, but that could not be immediately confirmed.
Fort Simpson residents have been assigned to Yellowknife as their evacuation hub. Wrigley residents were flown to Fort Smith.
Late on Monday evening, Pehdzéh Kı̨ First Nation Chief Jamie Moses said 58 people remain in Wrigley, which ordinarily has a population of around 135.
“We had a downpour. Now the visibility has improved, but we still have strong north wind so that’s always a concern until this fire is out,” Chief Moses wrote.
The weather in the Dehcho is set to cool slightly in the coming days with a chance of showers, though that doesn’t fully remove the wildfire-related risk.
“We’re expecting a bit of a cold front,” said Wrigley fire information officer Shannon Graf on Monday.
“The thing to keep in mind with the cold front is a wee bit more wind, so that’s where day to day, hour to hour, we keep evaluating things and determining when it’s safe to go in and where we can make the biggest difference.”
Get in touch
If you’re an evacuee from Fort Simpson or Wrigley, we’d like to hear from you. You can use this form to contact our reporting team.
