Yukon Wildland Fire Management crews have finished building a perimeter around the entire Takhini Bridge fire and are confident it will remain within this boundary.

“We don’t believe the fire will move beyond the perimeter,” fire information officer Mike Fancie told the Star this morning.

The fire, west of Whitehorse, is listed as “being held” as of Sunday evening.

“We’re very lucky,” Fancie said. “The work done in the first few days of the response really set us up for success.”

There are still 20 fires burning in the Yukon, though only the Takhini Bridge fire and a fire at the Finlayson airstrip near Ross River are being actively responded to by firefighters.

The other fires are in wilderness areas and are being monitored. The airstrip fire is being attended to by Wildland Fire, but at this point they are just doing structure protection work.

Reinforcements have now arrived from Nova Scotia to provide relief for fatigued Wildland Fire crews on the Takhini Bridge fire (see photo, p. 3).

“We have to give our firefighters rest,” Fancie said.

On Saturday, Yukon’s Wildland firefighters completed the perimeter fire guard, wrapping the area with a 25-kilometre clearing.

“We were able to get a really good perimeter around the fire quickly,” he said.

Fancie credits the early decisive action of several crews of firefighters and equipment operators for being able to get a fire guard up so fast.

“We had put lots of resources on the fire very quickly,” he said.

Firefighters continue to work the blaze, mopping up hot spots and flares.

It grew slightly since last week and is now listed at 1,546 hectares.

Fancie said they believe they will now be able to keep the fire at this size, though there is still more work to be done before it is technically considered “under control.”

Rainfall has also helped crews manage the fire.

To have a meaningful effect on a fire, Fancie said, there need to be more than four millimetres of rain.

“Last week we had four to six millimetres on the rain gauge,” he said. “That’s pretty good news for us.”

Beyond the impact on actual fire activity itself, the rain was substantial enough to penetrate further into the forest floor and soak bigger logs, meaning those fuels take longer to dry out when the rain stops.

The evacuation alert for 155 Ibex Valley households remains in place, and Fancie said changing it is a separate discussion than changing the fire’s status to “being held.”

The crew of 20 firefighters from Nova Scotia’s Department of Forestry and Natural Resources arrived on Sunday and have set up camp at Hidden Valley Elementary School off the North Klondike Highway for their two-week shift. This is where Wildland Fire has also established the incident command post for the fire.

“We’ve had people working on the fire for a week now,” Fancie said of the reasons for bringing in outside help.

“Some of these people had been working before the fire ignited. So, we have to take fatigue into consideration.”

The Nova Scotians arrived on a direct Air North flight. The airline had taken Yukon athletes to the North American Indigenous Games in Halifax.

As of Sunday, there were still 34 firefighters on the Takhini Bridge fire, including a 14-person First Nations fire crew.

They also have four pieces of heavy equipment and two helicopters working the blaze.

The fire began the evening of July 8 from an officially undetermined cause.

Wildland Fire updates the status of fires and provides other fire-related information at https://wildfires.service.yukon.ca

They will now be giving one update per day on the Takhini Bridge fire. Previously, they were giving twice-daily updates.

Updated fire ban

Wildland Fire decided it is now saturated enough in some areas of the territory to remove Level 2 fire restrictions and return to normal summer burning rules.

“There was some pretty meaningful rainfall in the districts where we removed the restrictions,” Fancie said.

Level 2 restrictions remain in place in the following districts: Whitehorse, Teslin, Watson Lake, Carmacks, Ross River and Mayo.

People in all other areas are now allowed to burn as normal, meaning a permit is still required for any fire use other than a campfire.

In Dawson and Whitehorse, those permits must be obtained from the city fire department, while outside of those areas, permits are issued by Wildland Fire Management.

Level 2 restrictions are part of the Yukon’s three level system 
of restrictions.

Level 3 means cooking and warming fires are only allowed in purpose-built containers or fire pits.

Level 2 means these are only allowed in firepits at road-accessible campgrounds and Level 1 bans all fires.

Other fires still burning

The Reverse Creek fire between Stewart Crossing and Mayo had no change in conditions and continues to burn away from the Silver Trail highway.

It has not grown from 3,690 hectares since last Tuesday, according to Wildland Fire’s public fire map.

The evacuation alert for homes in the area unchanged as a precautionary measure, Fancie said.

Fire crews have used this time to develop several different defensive plans, should the fire become more active or change direction.

The Illusion Creek Fire between Faro and Carmacks has grown significantly and is now 23,000 hectares.

This is still in a wilderness area, however. Smoke from the fire is impacting communities along the Robert Campbell Highway.

Fancie said the fire grew over the weekend, but after some rainfall he is seeing less activity on the landscape in heat maps they use to look at fire intensity.

He also said this fire is buffered by an old burn between it and nearby populated areas, helping to insulate them from danger.

These fires are also a normal part of boreal forest health.

Fancie said they try to manage the forest in a way that sometimes let these normal, natural fires burn. This helps the natural material cycle to occur and regulate forest health.

“It’s important to remember that even a large fire has ecological value and so it’s important for us to allow fire to continue the processes that exist in the boreal ecosystem,” he said.