During this week’s city council meeting Deputy Mayor Kirk Cameron expressed concerns for the wildfire situation internationally, and in Canadian cities.

He asked if the council had started having robust conversations with the Yukon government on how to turn Whitehorse into a safe haven for the rest of Yukon during wildfire emergencies. The city has hosted evacuees from Mayo, Old Crow and Yellowknife this month.

Prior to his questions, Cameron said, “We have seen incredible impacts not predicted with no capacity to actually jump on them. In places like Maui, in Lahaina.

“We’ve seen what’s happened and seeing what is happening in West Kelowna. We have seen Yellowknife devastated by either real impacts of wildfire or potential. And Whitehorse is no exception,” he told his colleagues.

Cameron said we were lucky this year.

“Because we’re sitting in a situation where we had a wildfire north of town. (The Ibex Valley wildfire began the evening of July 8.)

“We got lucky with the winds, and so we did not have 40, 50, 60-kilometre winds driving that fire into downtown Whitehorse, where we would have had to deal with a significant burn here in our city,” he said.

Cameron said this issue is about the Yukon – and beyond.

“We are the substantial centre for the Yukon when it comes to a safe haven for people and communities where they are going to be hit by wildfires.

“We had two of them here in the Yukon, Old Crow and Mayo. We were able to be there for them because they had to evacuate. And where they were looking for their safe haven. They looked at Whitehorse,” he said.

If Whitehorse was Yellowknife, Cameron said, the city would have had to be evacuated along with other communities in the Yukon, and their residents moved to a safe haven somewhere else because the Yukon capital would not have been able to deal with the circumstances of wildfire.

“It’s not like it used to be, where you would get a couple or three or four little spot fires and you would have great capacity to jump on them and deal with those issues,” Cameron said.

“We’re dealing with a new era of wildfire that we now have to be very serious about.”

Cameron said council and partners such as the Yukon government need to rethink this as a priority and ensure Whitehorse is prepared to be the island in the Yukon for people to come to as the “safe haven”

He said Yellowknife used to be that place, but they were “caught,” and had to be evacuated last week, largely to Alberta.

City manager Jeff O’Farrell said the city and government haven’t been having a specific conversation about Whitehorse being a “safe haven” per se, but there has been ongoing communication related to wildfire events.

“Since the events in Northwest Territories escalated last week, we’ve been back and forth with our partners at Yukon Government extensively and watching the situation, particularly this situation in the capital city, the Northwest Territories quite closely trying to learn from that experience,” O’Farrell said.

“Noting that this is unprecedented, it’s the first time in the history of Canada that a capital city has been evacuated.

“But, to answer the question, yes, we are in an ongoing communication with Yukon Government around the situation in Yellowknife and around what else we can do to prepare our capital city going forward into the future,” added O’Farrell.

Lahaina residents lost all of their virtual communications connections to alert citizens of the impending fire, Cameron noted.

He asked if Whitehorse has a backup and if the communications system here is robust enough, if hit with wildlife, to inform citizens.

O’Farrell said that’s an area that will be explored further during the off-season.

“We’ve certainly all heard media reports around the events as they unfolded under Lahaina, but I don’t think we have a full picture of exactly what happened in that particular incident,” the city manager said.

“Through our work with our partner (YG) over the off-season, we’ll get a better sense of the full capacity of our telecommunications network and what backups exist to that.”

Cameron then asked about firebreaks.

“We have a sense now, it’s not clear, but our sense is that Yellowknife has survived because of a very protracted effort by the private sector and public sector to build a 300-metre firebreak that protected that community,” Cameron said.

“Are we prepared and willing to push forward on a more robust effort to build a firebreak to protect the city of Whitehorse?” he asked.

O’Farrell said the city’s partners in YG have told them about how important firebreaks are. But, he said, they have somewhat of a misleading name.

“A ‘firebreak’ doesn’t actually stop the fire from travelling,” he noted.

“A firebreak provides a space on the ground where wildfire crews can establish a defensive position where they can mobilize their equipment and attempt to slightly delay the advance of a wildfire in order to provide more time for a community to safely protect its citizens,” O’Farrell explained.

“Your current government has done tremendous work on a firebreak in the south of Whitehorse. And they’ve recently advanced an application to extend that firebreak along the Copper Haul Road.

“We haven’t yet talked about something like a perimeter around the city of Whitehorse. But we do have a council briefing coming up this fall that will involve both Yukon Government, Wildland Fire Management and Energy, Mines and Resources, who is the owner of most of the land in the Whitehorse area, and forest management branch for further discussion about what possible landscape level options might exist, going into the future,” he told council.

According to posts from the Yukon Protective Services Facebook over the last week, wildfire crews have made many efforts.

Crews burned leftover debris from a FireSmart project between Robert Service Way and the McLean Lake Road to reduce wildfire risk next spring.

They continued their fall prescribed burning work near the Chadburn Lake Road.

Wildland Fire Management staff performed a prescribed test burn fire operation in Mary Lake on Wednesday and Thursday, with monitoring and mop-up set for the weekend (see coverage, p. 4). Smoke from that operation has been visible.

Mayor Laura Cabott said it’s extremely wise to be following these fire events. She asked when an update is provided and the events are reviewed, will plans, processes, and protocols be looked at for possible updates?

“This is unprecedented times, and what we have in place now may very well not work with the climate change impacts that are coming at us,” Cabott said.

Krista Mroz, the city’s director of community services, said global situations that are happening regarding wildfires will be monitored to see what practices and lessons can be learned. They will be reviewed to see if anything can be implemented.

“We’re also going to start taking a look at our reviewing and updating our own emergency plans this fall through the shoulders or through the offseason and determining what, if anything, we can update based on the information that we have from our local fires from what we’re understanding locally.”

Staff will then develop a comprehensive emergency preparedness educational campaign and updates to the website so the information is current and citizens can be prepared and ready to go.

A FireSmart co-ordinator began work this week.

“We’ll be implementing action items under the wildfire risk reduction strategy and starting to take a look at those that require policy considerations,” Mroz said.

“And bringing those forward for amendments or adjustments.”

Being prepared starts at home, she noted, listing preparations citizens can look into, such as:

• monitoring weather and listening to local authorities;

• making sure your vehicle is fuelled in the event of evacuation;

• developing a 72-hour kit which includes documents, medications, valuables, etc.;

• planning how to pick up your kids from school in the event of evacuation;

• testing smoke alarms;

• preparing plans for pets and livestock;

• FireSmarting; cleaning up debris, dried branches, trees, leaves; and

• Connecting with your community association and engaging neighbourhood-level FireSmart initiatives around the area.

On Wednesday, Cabott and Community Services Minister Richard Mostyn released a statement on emergency preparedness in Whitehorse.

They said it’s important to learn from wildfire incidents to ensure Whitehorse and communities are prepared to respond in the event of a large-scale emergency.

“Communities have the responsibility to review their emergency and evacuation plans,” the mayor and minister said.

“Over the coming months, the City of Whitehorse and the Government of Yukon will be reviewing their joint emergency response processes, evacuation plans and incorporating lessons and observations from other jurisdictions.

“This includes a review of how we communicate with residents before, during and after an emergency; how we inform people of evacuations; and how we work together through the territory’s Emergency Measures Organization. We can never be ‘too prepared’ for a natural disaster.”

In the event of a large-scale emergency, the two said, “we all have a role to play. Residents can prepare for emergencies by having an emergency plan for their families and pets, making a 72-hour emergency kit, taking steps now to protect their homes and properties and following government and news sources that provide emergency updates.”