Canada’s Yellowknife City Under Evacuation as Wildfires Reaches North

One of the largest cities in the far northern region of Canada is under evacuation amid warnings that a wildfire could reach it by the weekend.

Terrible Wildfire Crisis

Canada is enduring a terrible summer with over 1,000 wildfires burning nationwide, including 230 in the Northwest Territories. As described by environment minister Shane Thompson, the wildfire situation in the country has taken another turn for the worst as the blaze in the regional capital Yellowknife represents a real threat to the city.

As of August 16, the wildfire was within 17 kilometers of Yellowknife city. Thompson has ordered the city's 20,000 residents to flee by noon on August 18. The government has arranged commercial and military flights since there is only one open highway to the south.

Thompson stressed that the city is not in immediate danger, but without rain, the fire may reach the outskirts of the town by the weekend. The residents will endanger themselves and others if they choose to stay later.

Earlier this week, the city declared an emergency which was later expanded across the northern territory as firefighters were forced to withdraw in some areas. Strong winds fueled the flames, and several villages and Indigenous communities have been placed under evacuation orders.

This event has already been declared the largest-ever evacuation in Northwest Territories. Evacuating the residents in Yellowknife city means that half the population of the near-Arctic territory will need to be displaced. On August 14, the Canadian military started airlifting residents from smaller towns in the Northwest Territories after the roads got consumed by flames. For many of them, it was the second time in the past months that the residents were forced to flee from their homes.

The evacuation order issued on the night of August 16 applies no the city of Yellowknife band the neighboring First Nations villages of Ndilo and Dettah. According to the region's fire information officer Mike Westwick, eight communities composed of 6,800 people have already evacuated, equivalent to 15% of Northwest Territories' total population.

Western Canada is experiencing a heat wave that leads to 19 daily heat records, which fuel hundreds of uncontrollable wildfires. This year, parts of almost 13 provinces have been engulfed by fires. As flames devoured 8,000 square miles of land, people were forced to flee while oil and gas production was disrupted.

Marathon Wildfire Season

Wildfires occur every summer in Canada, but not at the scale seen this year. According to the data released by the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre, the land area scorched throughout the country in early August is almost double the typically burned zone during an entire season. About 134,000 square kilometers of land have been burned more than six times a 10-year average, with over 168,000 people forced to evacuate.

Canadian Forest Service official Michael Norton describes this summer as a challenging marathon for the country. From their most recent projection, it was assumed that higher-than-normal fire activities would remain across much of the country in August and September. Norton also reported that the simultaneous flaring up of blazes is mainly due to drought conditions which continue to intensify in some areas.