At this point, the N.W.T. premier says, “It doesn’t look good.
Leona Mantla-Reddad was ready when the people of Behchok, N.W.T., were told to leave their homes Monday night.She had packed her bags, gotten supplies for her dog, and filled up her car earlier in the day because an evacuation alert had been sent out earlier.
“Not many people were there. “I left earlier to make sure I get here before everyone else, so there won’t be a big rush of cars,” Mantla-Reddad said. Around 8:30 p.m., she was in the parking lot of the Multiplex, which is now an evacuation center, in Yellowknife.
Two yellow school buses stopped nearby while people got off.
The order to leave was given just before 6 p.m. by Behchok, a town of about 2,000 people northwest of Yellowknife. About 25 kilometers east of Behchok and 45 kilometers northwest of Yellowknife, a wildfire is burning.
This is the fourth town in the NWT to have to leave because of wildfires this year.
Mike Westwick, a wildfire information officer for the N.W.T. government, told CBC News on Monday night that winds will likely push the fire closer to Behchok on Tuesday.
“The winds are coming from the east this evening and into Tuesday. That will push the fire to the west. And since we haven’t been able to finish all the ignitions we wanted to because of the weather, this is a worrying trend.”
Premier of the Northwest Territories Caroline Cochrane was at the Multiplex to help evacuated people get back in. She said, “We don’t know what’s going to happen with the community. It doesn’t look good at this point.
“I think there will be a lot of help that will be needed.”
Cochrane also described how bad the situation was with wildfires all over the territory.
“I don’t want to scare people, but it’s a big deal. We’ve burned more than a million hectares of forest because of the fires. There are 125 fires going on. So far, we’ve had 150,” she said. “Fires are usually started by lightning or by people making a mistake. So let’s try as much as we can to stop people from making mistakes.”
Monday night, Mantla-Reddad seemed calm and collected, and she said she was sure the territory’s wildfire agency would protect her home. But, she said, it was scary to drive southeast on Highway 3 to Yellowknife.
“It was scary because there were new fires going up and it was dark, but everyone on the road kept their cool.”
While Mantla-Reddad got ready for the upcoming evacuation, Tracy Beaulieu had trouble getting ready because she was sent home from work early. She was hoping that the order to leave wouldn’t come.
When the siren went off in her neighborhood, she grabbed her ID, a USB with photos, and her birth certificates. Then she put her three kids, twins who were five years old and a nine-year-old, on one of the buses that took people to Yellowknife.
“The bus was hot, so everyone had to put the window down a little bit to get some air, but the smoke kind of got in the way.”
Beaulieu said she was too busy.
She said, “Getting those kids ready and out the door was hard because they didn’t want to go.” “I know how to explain things to them so they get it.”