Haley Ritchie, Yukon Wildland Fire Information Officer, and Devin Bailey, Director of Yukon Wildland Fire Management, during a wildfire season briefing on July 30th. Photo Courtesy of Macklen Linke/CKRW.
Whitehorse, YT – This year’s fire season has been a busy one for wildfire crews as the intensity of fires rises due to increasingly dry conditions.
More than 130 fires have burned over 122,000 hectares, with the hardest-hit areas around Dawson and Mayo. Evacuation alerts, highway closures, and dense smoke in central Yukon marked much of June and July.
Wildland Fire Management director Devin Bailey told reporters during a wildfire update that the number of fires is not unusual for this time of year but wind, lightning, and dry conditions mean fires are sometimes getting beyond control within 30 minutes.
“Our crews do an amazing job with initial attack, and we do have a lot of success there,” said Bailey. “This year the amount of lightning that occurred within a short period of time into a very tender dry forest, combined with the wind, made a lot of these fires just beyond resources very quickly.”
About 90 fires remain active, and four are still considered “of note.”
Fire officials say they remain well-funded for the remainder of the season while wildfire prevention work is ongoing on a fuel break south of Whitehorse and long-term fire planning in communities including Dawson, Watson Lake, Mayo and Beaver Creek.
