If a wildfire threatens Yellowknife, what will the city do?
CBC
As an out-of-control wildfire threatens the Kátł'odeeche First Nation reserve and Hay River, N.W.T., Yellowknife is playing host to hundreds of evacuees who've fled for their safety.
But what would happen if a wildfire broke out close to Yellowknife?
"We're not exempt from fires," said Lawrence Casaway, an elder who lives between Yellowknife and Dettah, and who fought Northwest Territories wildfires in the 1970s.
"In Dettah, Ndilǫ and Yellowknife, we should get ready," Casaway said. "Today I'm going to get ready to pack stuff and get ready to go if that happens, if a fire starts here."
Communities are responsible for creating and executing their own emergency plans.
Yellowknife's emergency management plan doesn't explicitly discuss wildfires, nor does it go into detail about city-wide evacuations. Rather, it sets out officials' and agencies' responsibilities, and the steps they should take in an emergency.
Mayor Rebecca Alty says the city's emergency plan doesn't get specific about wildfires because there are so many variables that could affect the response.
"The key thing for residents [to know] is that we would communicate what needs to happen," she said.
The city would do that through the media and the territory's emergency alert system, which broadcasts emergency alerts and safety information through mobile devices, radios and cable TV networks.
If the city needed to be evacuated, officials would tell them where to go through such an alert, said Alty.
The city doesn't name a specific destination for potential evacuees from Yellowknife.
According to the its website, in the event of a city-wide evacuation, the city would develop a plan specific to the emergency's circumstances.
In the case of a wildfire, officials would consider the direction of the fire's advance, the weather, smoke, and the security of roads and air routes, among other factors.
The city says that in a full-scale evacuation, it would make use of both air and ground transportation options, unless one of those was cut off by the emergency.
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