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Run for your lives

It's impossible to hear stories about people fleeing for their lives from wildfires – or losing expensive properties, many part of the NWT's tourism draw – without wondering what the heck is wrong with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

Predicting Mother Nature's next move is always difficult. But not impossible.

Sometimes, it could require more preventative equipment, such as sprinklers, be placed as fires blaze toward property and people. Perhaps firefighters on the ground and in the air should be called in to try and stop the wildfire, or at least try to change its direction.

At other times, a firm order to evacuate might be needed – even if it is made out of an abundance of caution – as we repeatedly hear of people literally self-evacuating in their own boats at the very last minute.

"Elders, some more than 80 years old, adults, kids and a baby only six months old were among those who had to get loaded into pickup trucks, drive about 10 kilometres to the Liard River, get into several boats, cross the river and then take more community-owned trucks into Fort Liard," said band manager Mark Pocklington ("People flee fire near Nahanni Butte," News/North Sept. 8), after a harrowing self-evacuation in the dark the night before.

"It was dark. It was windy. The water was rough but no one panicked. We had to hold and carry some of the elders with mobility issues."

Most people fled the thick smoke and hot embers with little more than the clothes on their back. No one was hurt and no structures were lost as winds shifted the fire. Most residents evacuated to Fort Liard.

All returned to Nahanni Butte on Sept. 9. This after more official bewilderment as to when to allow people to return.

In that incident, Environment and Natural Resources (ENR) officials are alleged to have told residents they were not in danger Sept. 7, just hours before they had to flee -- that as those workers were themselves leaving. Allegations have also been made against the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs (MACA) for not helping with the evacuation, once the community made the decision to leave.

MACA officials defended their inaction, stating they had received "the best information" available from ENR.

But in the end, it was up to the people to make a potentially life-saving decision.

Is that the rule of thumb that needs to be followed in the NWT? While we admire and celebrate the men and women on the front lines – firefighters, pilots and everyone back at the office who does their best to predict and fight fires – we can only surmise that serious communication issues remain in the territorial government's chain of command.

Reports into incidents that caused near loss of life and major property damage have been done. But they aren't made public without a fight.

When leaked to the media, we learn of out of date maps, contradicting reports of radio or phone contact with lodge owners and a lack of equipment.

We urge the GNWT, and specifically Environment and Natural Resources Minister Robert C. McLeod to increase its support for ENR -- in money, equipment, personnel and training.

Unless there is change, the GNWT will have done nothing except to fiddle while Rome burns.