Rain will throw cold water on ‘massive’ wildfire growth in southern regions

The rain currently falling in some regions will help limit some of the massive fire growth experienced over the weekend, says NWT Fire.

There are several large wildfires still burning in the Dehcho and South Slave regions and smoke will be pushed into various communities, depending on the winds.

The break from wildfire smoke that blanketed the Yellowknife area over the past several days did arrive Tuesday when the winds shifted from the south 180-degrees to the north.

However, when those same favourable winds moved slightly to the east, the city was again immersed in smoke from five-hectare wildfire ZF034-24, burning a good distance away, at the west of Gordon Lake.

Currently, there are no communities at risk in the NWT, but heavy smoke and ash could continue in some areas. Visibility and air quality could vary a lot.

Amy Kennedy is a wildfire information officer with the GNWT.

“We know this can be stressful, but crews are working hard to ensure that communities continue to be safe,” she stated.

“There is finally a break from extreme heat and high winds in much of the NWT. There will be cooler temperatures, lighter winds from the north with rain in some regions.”

Wildfire SS066 on Monday inside Fort Smith community boundaries was human-caused and it came within metres of local homes and could have spread quickly to the drier areas.

Firefighters from the town and NWT Fire worked quickly to extinguish the blaze.

As for road closures, there is nothing wildfire related, but Highway 3 at the Deh Cho Bridge is down to one lane until further notice after a vehicle collision damaged part of the structure last week. The single lane is controlled with traffic lights.

To date this year, there have been 167 wildfires, 1,191,365 hectares burned.