Yellowknife residents waited overnight for evacuation flights set to resume on Friday and lines of cars left the territorial capital, heeding warnings from Canadian officials to flee a relentless wildfire.
Cars have been moving along the only main highway out of Yellowknife since authorities in the Northwest Territories ordered the evacuation of the entire city and neighboring communities. Officials have urged all 20,000 of the city’s residents to leave by Friday noon local time, worried the flames could approach the city by the weekend or restrict access.
The government says it is safe for residents who are able to evacuate by road and that “flights should be used as a last resort.” About 21 flights with 2,000 seats were scheduled for Friday, and additional flights could be organized for Saturday depending on turnaround and need, it said.
Officials said flights on Thursday had quickly reached capacity after weather delayed the schedule, resulting in some residents who had been lining up for hours being turned away and asked to return on Friday morning. Canadian Broadcasting Corp. said about 1,500 people were airlifted out of Yellowknife on Thursday, with an estimated total of 5,000 looking for flights out.
“We understand that this is deeply frustrating for those who have been in line for several hours and who will need to line up again tomorrow,” the government of the Northwest Territories said. “Many individuals with mobility issues and who are immunocompromised or have a condition that puts them at higher risk of severe outcomes due to smoke were moved up in line, and we would like to thank everyone for their cooperation in making this happen,” the statement added.
Air travel was organized for at-risk residents including chemotherapy patients, seniors and people with disabilities, as well as inmates and corrections officers, according to CBC. It said hospital patients would be airlifted Friday out of Yellowknife — which sits about 350 miles south of the Arctic Circle and 600 miles north of Edmonton.
Air Canada said it added extra flights out of Yellowknife and that it had capped fares from “the earliest possible time,” after some airlines faced allegations of price escalation. It said flights for the next few days were “fairly full,” and that it would monitor updates closely to “adjust our schedule as we can.”
Fire information officer Mike Westwick said in an update Thursday evening that firefighters “managed to not have the highway be impacted as folks make their way to safety from our capital city.”
Fires in the wider Northwest Territories have scorched homes and forced other evacuations over the past week. Westwick said this was “yet another example of the kind of severe fire season that we’re facing this year and the extraordinary human toll it’s taking.”
More than 1,000 active fires were raging across Canada on Thursday, as a combination of record-challenging heat, climate change and long-term drought has exacerbated the wildfire season. This year’s fires have burned twice as much land in the country as any previous season — an area equivalent to Alabama.
In the British Columbia province, the city of Kelowna declared a state of emergency on Thursday and the West Kelowna fire chief said nearly 2,500 people have been told to evacuate, with thousands more asked to remain on alert.
This story highlights the urgency and scale of the wildfire situation in Canada, specifically in the Northwest Territories and British Columbia. With thousands of residents being evacuated and concerns over access to the affected areas, the government and airlines are working to ensure the safety of the affected population. However, delays and capacity issues have caused frustration among residents who have been waiting for evacuation flights. The severity of the fire season this year and the widespread impact of the fires across the country are a stark reminder of the challenges posed by climate change and the need for proactive measures to address wildfires.