Wildfires around Yellowknife are now listed as "being held," but there is no timeline yet as to when residents will be able to return home.
Under the latest status, the fires are expected to remain unchanged under the current level of firefighting, barring a change in the weather.
“This is awesome news,” said Sheila Bassi-Kellett, Yellowknife’s city manager. “But it doesn’t mean the risk is gone yet.”
Bassi-Kellett said the city has been working with the GNWT as the government developed a re-entry framework.
She noted there has been no fire damage in the city, so officials will be able to skip over the checking for fire damage requirement.
Essential workers will return home first to provide support for re-entry, notably the public works and health care services.
“We’re going to have them at a basic level, it’s not going to be complete and it’s not going to be pretty,” she said. After essential services are restored, the evacuation order can be lifted. “But today’s news is a really encouraging step.
“As we develop more granular elements to our reentry plan we will be sharing them publicly.”
She added the city was reaching out to businesses to identify critical staff.
Emergency Management Organization (EMO) information officer Jay Boast said the city and GNWT were identifying what counts as essential services and contacting them.
He said the best thing residents can do to ensure they’re connected to the right information is to register at the nearest evacuation centre or the GNWT’s Evacuation Portal.
Boast said until the city tells people to come back, the barricades preventing people from returning will remain up.
He added no specific date for essential services to return to Yellowknife has not been set.
NWT Health and Social Services Authority CEO Kimberly Riles said Stanton Territorial Hospital has begun identifying essential workers but has not started calling them back yet, aside from personnel needed to keep the emergency room operating.
Over 320 personnel are working on the North Slave fires.
“Over the last seven days we’ve made pretty good strides into that fire,” said incident commander Ray Phane. “Our crews have made very good strides. They have already laid out 15 to 16 kilometres of hose line.
“Things are looking very good across the fire. In the community of Behchoko there is very little fire activity.”
He said cooler temperatures and moderate amounts of rain have helped lowered the temperatures of the the fires and winds have largely been in favour of the firefighting effort in North Slave.
The fire along the Ingraham Trail has seen no growth over several days. There has been no significant growth of the Dettah fire. Both fires continue to be monitored.
Yellowknives Dene First Nation emergency operations director Kieron Testart staff are doing safety checks twice a day in N’dilo and Dettah.
“We can assure our residents tehre have been no incidents and your homes are very safe,” he said, adding the community has begun the return of its operations. “Our commitment to your security remains steadfast. This has been an unprecedented situation for our First Nations government and its staff.”
He said the plan would follow the Yellowknife re-entry plan to line up services. He asked for patience in the delays in getting financial assistance to YKDFN members.