OTTAWA: Thousands ordered to flee wildfires advancing on one of the largest cities in Canada’s far north crammed into a local airport on Thursday to board emergency evacuation flights, as convoys snaked south to safety on the only open highway.

The order late on Wednesday to evacuate Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories marked the latest chapter of a terrible summer for wildfires in Canada, with tens of thousands of people forced to leave their homes and vast swathes of land scorched.

Tiffany Champagne was one of many awaiting flights at the airport in Yellowknife.

“I have asthma and the wildfire smoke was making it increasingly difficult to do anything,” Champagne, wearing a face mask, told the CBC. “I’m just kind of mentally checked out at this point.” As of early Thursday, more than 1,000 wildfires were burning, including about 230 in the Northwest Territories.

More than 20,000 residents of Yellowknife, the regional capital, have been given until noon Friday to leave by road or on commercial and military flights.

“We’re all tired of the word unprecedented, yet there is no other way to describe this situation in the Northwest Territo­ries,” regional premier Caroline Cochrane said on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

Published in Dawn, August 18th, 2023