The residents of Yellowknife, the largest city in Canada’s Northwest Territories, have been forced out of their homes. The city is being evacuated due to the approaching forest fires, report Canadian media Thursday. By Friday afternoon local time, the twenty thousand people, almost half of the province’s population, must be gone.
The evacuation route to the three shelters, the closest of which is 1,300 kilometers from Yellowknife, runs right past the flames. A card of the fires shows the fire raging on both sides of the road out of Yellowknife. “The fact that the fire reached the highway does not mean it is necessarily unsafe,” the Northwest Territories government writes. “Road authorities guide drivers through the fire zones.”
The fire is still about twenty kilometers from Yellowknife, but a northwesterly wind is expected to push it closer. The fire could reach the city this weekend, the province writes, but a few showers can make a “significant difference”.
If you don’t leave by car, you can go by plane. On images from the Canadian news site CBC you can see long queues of people waiting for an airlift. It goes according to the BBC for the largest air evacuation Northwest Territories has conducted.
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