Firefighters wage epic battle to save communities

VANCOUVER (AP):

Firefighters battling wildfires in western Canada received help from reinforcements and milder weather on Saturday, after the nation’s worst fire season on record destroyed structures, fouled the air with thick smoke, and prompted evacuation orders for tens of thousands of residents.

Flames were being held at bay 15 kilometres (nine miles) from Yellowknife, the capital of the Northwest Territories, and weary firefighters had a reprieve around Kelowna in British Columbia. But the firefighters were nowhere close to declaring victory, especially with drier and windier weather forecast for the coming days.

“We’re by no means out of the woods yet,” Mike Westwick, wildfire information officer for Yellowknife, told The Associated Press. “We still have a serious situation. It’s not safe to return.”

The fires near Kelowna, about 90 miles (150 kilometres) north of the US border, are among more than 380 blazes across the province, with 150 burning out of control, according to The Canadian Press. Another 236 fires are burning in the Northwest Territories.

At a Saturday evening news conference, Shane Thompson, the province’s minister of environment and climate change, said the fires near Yellowknife had not grown very much in the past few days, thanks to breaks in the weather.

“But I want to be clear, a little bit of rain doesn’t mean it’s safe to come back home,” he said. Others warned that incoming hot weather would make the battle more challenging.

STAY AWAY

Yellowknife Mayor Rebecca Alty encouraged residents to stay away from the town, to ensure their safety and help with firefighting efforts. She assured people that patrols were monitoring the streets and homes to protect against looting.

“This fire’s taking a nap. Its going to wake up and we still got a serious situation to handle here,” Westwick said.

Yellowknife has been a virtual ghost town since a majority of the city’s 20,000 residents started to flee following an evacuation order issued on Wednesday evening, officials said. Long caravans of cars choked the main highway for days, and those who couldn’t take to the road lined up for emergency flights out of the city. The last 39 hospital patients were flown out Friday night on a Canadian Forces plane, officials said.

On Saturday, officials said the escape route out of Yellowknife was safe, for the time being. About 2,600 people remained, including emergency teams, firefighters, utility workers and police officers, along with some residents who refused to leave.