Northwest Territories Forest Fire Information

YELLOWKNIFE (July 21, 2014) – Government of the Northwest Territories departments are working together with community governments and other organizations and agencies to monitor forest fire activity in the Northwest Territories and respond to potential threats to public safety, communities and critical infrastructure as required.

During this period of increased forest fire activity, individual departments are providing information on current activities through a variety of means, including on the Internet.

Please visit the following websites for the most recent, accurate official information on forest fire activity, road closures and other issues related to forest fires:

• Daily updates on NWT fires are published on the Environment and Natural Resources (ENR) website each afternoon at 3:00 p.m. (under the heading “What’s New”).
• The NWT Fire website provides daily wildland fire situation reports for the whole NWT and each region, as well as a live map of forest fire activity and downloadable maps of forest fire activity, lightning activity and fire danger.
• ENR is also providing information and updates on its Facebook page.
• To report smoke or fire in the forest, call ENR at 1-877-NWT-FIRE (1-877-698-3473)
• The Department of Transportation (DOT) is providing information about road closures on its home page and Travel Alerts page. The department aims to update information every four to five hours between 6:00 a.m. and midnight, or as significant developments occur.
• DOT’s Road Conditions page provides information on the latest conditions for all roads in the Northwest Territories.
• Follow @GNWT_DOT on Twitter to receive the latest updates from Transportation.
• Road updates are also available by calling DOT at 1-800-661-0750.
• Information about Territorial Park closures due to forest fires can be found under alerts on Industry, Tourism and Investment’s NWT Parks website.
• Information about air quality in the NWT is available from the NWT Air Quality Monitoring Network. Air quality information may also be posted to Environment Canada’s Public Weather Alerts page.
• The Chief Public Health Officer has published the following information on Health Effects of Smoke Exposure due to Forest Fires. Follow @NWT_CPHO and @ACSP_TNO on Twitter for public health information in English or French.
• Yellowknife residents can like the City of Yellowknife’s Facebook Page: Our Yellowknife and follow @OurYellowknife on Twitter. The City will help distribute emergency information from the GNWT when required and will also use these sites to provide information about emergency preparedness and response in Yellowknife.
• To report a community emergency only, contact the NWT Emergency Measures Office 24 hours a day at 867-920-2303. Requests for information or updates should be directed to the responsible department.

Each department or organization is responsible for updating their pages on their own as required by the current situation.

This list is also available on the GNWT website at http://www.gov.nt.ca/gnwt_fire_information/.