Traditional knowledge lens: Updating evacuated Elders on the wildfire emergency

“Everyone is doing good, happy faces, elders are being looked after by the fish camp community and that is wonderful,” says Fort Good Hope Chief Collin Pierrot

Veteran wildfire fighter Frank McKay has been NWT Fire’s information officer assigned to the massive Fort Good Hope wildfire, known as VQ001.

The wildfire, caused by an abandoned campfire on June 15, has grown to more than 5,500 hectares. The forced evacuation of the Sahtu community of more than 500 people continues, with no end in sight.

As his extended posting onsite ended today, McKay offered these thoughts:

“Before I go, I want to show how we engage with the FGH evacuees with our daily updates using what I refer to as through a Traditional Knowledge lens just with the maps to illustrate our actions for the day.

“In the update picture, you will see our translator, George Grandjambe, pointing his finger at six fires of note in the fire perimeter in which he populated the small map with a red marker to show fire and the big maps shows blacklining progress using a black marker.

“He then speaks about the fire and our actions using the maps rather than the written words in the update, but the messaging is the same, only in the K’asho Got’ı̨nę dialect.

“This approach is more suited to reach out to the Elders whereby they can understand what we are doing, and they really appreciate this!

“This type of outreach builds goodwill and carries over into relationship building. Plus, we sit down one on one with those that want individual updates.

“Again, over my experience, and as an Indigenous person, we view the world through a visual lens, and this is an effective means to communicate letting the maps do the talking so to speak.”

The blaze continues to burn out of control, but away from the community. No structures have been lost and there have been no reports of any injuries to residents or firefighters.

McKay’s replacement is Shannon Graf, senior communications officer with the NWT Department of Environment and Climate Change.

“Dry weather is expected to continue, with the evenings offering little relief for the relative humidity. Light easterly winds may push the fire back against its previous burn and lead to flare ups or hot spots.

“This type of fire behaviour will create localized smoke in the affected areas that may be visible from the community, it will likely remain isolated and is not a threat to the community. Winds are expected to come from the southeast later in the evening.”

Crews and aerial support continue to work fire perimeter facing community extinguishing hotspots and incursions that escape the fire perimeter.

Crews continue to blackline a 50-to 100-foot fire perimeter on community side from the fire’s northern edge to southwestern edge and are making excellent progress. This involves burning off any remaining fuels in the area such as dead trees or grass; it can also involve digging to the soil.

Suppression action will be focused on the fire perimeter adjacent to the community allowing the fire to naturally burn away from the community to create to fire buffer to act as a fire guard in the future.

Traditional knowledge has identified suitable water sources for on the ground use.

There are no significant updates to be had from the other active fires this morning. Please refer to yesterday evening’s update.

Fort Good Hope Chief Collin Pierrot also took time over the long weekend to praise the efforts of those helping to protect the community.

“Our Tu’yahta Guardians are working above and beyond to make sure that everyone stays safe and healthy and cared for, (we) couldn’t ask for anything better.

“Hats off to everyone down here: KGF guardians; the cooks and their helpers; camp attendants; and many others including one of the band councillors and the Sahtu Secretariat Incorporated Chairman (Charles McNeely).

“God Bless you all and I ask you all to look out and watch out for one another.”