Residents of Jean Marie River can now return home, while Hay River is preparing for “tough days ahead” over the next few days, according to NWT Fire.
Hot conditions are forecast, and winds are expected to push the fire toward the town.
The Town promised to publicly release a plan to deal with the situation, but as of 8:45 p.m. no plan was available on either their website or Facebook page. Fire remains 8 km from the community at its closest point, according to the most recent estimate.
Difficult conditions are forecast for the Fort Smith area as well: Hot weather and no precipitation are in the forecast, with winds that will push the fire towards the town. More than 300 personnel are on this fire.
Elsewhere, the news is better: Residents of Jean Marie River were given the green light to return today, although the community remains under an evacuation alert. Highway 3 also reopened to traffic from Yellowknife to Behchokǫ̀, but not in the opposite direction.
Fire is still about 15 km from Yellowknife at its closest point, according to the most recent estimate. According to officials, the fire has little chance of reaching Yellowknife city boundaries in the next three days. But there’s still a chance of the fire breaching defences and growing towards the east over the next 48 hours.
Thursday was also a rollercoaster day for telecoms across the territory: First, shortly before 1:00 p.m., Northwestel announced service had been restored to every community. Just hours later, around quarter to 4:00, the company announced all service had been cut off to Kakisa and Jean Marie River, and long-distance landline service to Hay River and Fort Smith had been impacted as well.
NWT Fire later announced full service had been restored to Kakisa and Fort Smith.
