Old Crow Emergency Declared

by CHRIS WOODS   Star Reporter

A large forest fire forced the Yukon Cabinet to meet at noon today in Whitehorse to declare a state of emergency in the isolated village of Old Crow, about 1100 kilometres north of Whitehorse.

"The fire is now within three kilometres of the town," Community Services Minister Maurice Byblow said in an interview this afternoon.

The state of emergency places all federal government services at the disposal of the Yukon government in its efforts to secure the safety of the village and its 270 people.

The money spent on saving the village will be reimbursed by the federal government to the Yukon government, said Byblow. Though he couldn't come up with an exact figure, he estimated it would create a $1 million tab.

"There's no price great enough to ensure people's lives are safe," said Byblow.

The tranquil Indian village was evacuated over the weekend as winds changed direction, blowing fire and smoke east toward the townsite.

It's the first evacuation caused by fire in the Yukon since 1969, Keith Kepke, head of fire management for Northern Affairs, told a news conference today.

An Armed Forces Hercules flew the last 67 people from Old Crow to Inuvik, N.W.T., Sunday morning, bringing the total airlifted out to 210. Many of the people have never left the village.

The only people left in the village are essential service workers, such as the RCMP and nurses.

As winds shifted to the west and the temperature rose to 28°C over the weekend, the fire made a major run from the west to the east, bringing the blaze within five kilometres of Old Crow, said Kepke.

Smoke from fires in Alaska has been hanging over Old Crow for a couple of weeks, and was the reason for the first evacuation of the village.

The latest evacuation was to let people escape the smoke from the Old Crow area fire. If the wind picks up and the fire takes a run at the village, the conditions may be too severe to fly, said Kepke.

The Old Crow area fire is at least fivefold what it was last Friday. Kepke estimated it to be 3,000 to 3,500 hectares.

There are 125 firefighters now battling the blaze. Firefighters from Whitehorse, Dawson City, and Old Crow are being assisted by 84 men from Alaska.

Preventing the fire from spreading west toward Old Crow is the priority today, said Kepke.

There are 10 Cats working on a fireline between the village and the blaze. Firefighters did not want to use bulldozers against this fire because the Cats scrape away the vegetation, leaving watery ditches in their wake as the permafrost melts. But defending the village is the priority now.

"We'll have to deal with the permafrost problems as they come up," said Kepke.

The smoke in the Old Crow area is so thick it isn't possible to see the edge of the fire from the air, making it impossible to use water bombers.

"Even helicopters can't fly this morning," said Kepke.

Firefighters are hoping the temperature will drop today and the smoke will lift. But the fire's behaviour depends on weather, so there's a chance it will make a run at Old Crow, said Kepke.

"If it turns hot and windy, it's a toss-up what might happen," he said. "I think the town is reasonably defensible."

The village is tucked between an airstrip on the north and the Porcupine River on the south.

Hoses are now at the ready in the streets of Old Crow in case the fire makes a leap into the town.

The smoke-filled village is "nice and quiet" today, RCMP Const. Gary McLeod said in an interview from Old Crow today.

Sunday, the weather was calm in the Old Crow area, but Kepke fears dry thunderstorms could create more fires in the next few days. They would be hard to spot because of smoke that now covers most of the Yukon.

The smoke visible from Whitehorse is believed to be from raging fires in several parts of Alaska. Over the weekend, Yukon RCMP detachments took hundreds of calls from people wondering if their villages were threatened.

The last Yukon evacuation took place Friday, June 13, 1969, when the then-brand new townsite of Faro had to be emptied as a forest fire swept through it.