Canadian wildfire threatens towns, govt orders evacuations

Canadian officials ordered the evacuation of the Northwest Territories’ capital of Yellowknife and several smaller communities on Wednesday as a massive wildfire threatened the town of Hay River overnight.

Teams were working to evacuate Hay River, a community of some 3,000 on Great Slave Lake, by bus or plane on Wednesday night as the fire approached.”Hay River saw the fire south of their community increase, get closer to the city today,” fire information officer Mike Westwick said at a news briefing on Wednesday evening.

“We saw highly active fire in that area and it was moving quickly.”Westwick said the blaze could reach Yellowknife by this weekend barring rain and that residents of the capital were also being asked to leave as part of a “phased evacuation” beginning with the most threatened communities.

So far no deaths have been reported from the Yellowknife fire but several structures have been destroyed. Yellowknife has a population of around 20,000 people and lies 250 miles (400 km) south of the Arctic circle.

Canada is enduring its worst wildfire season with more than 1,000 active fires burning across the country