Jean Marie River 'on standby,' chief says, as crews work to keep nearby wildfire at bay

Wildfire officials in the N.W.T. on Tuesday were hopeful that weather conditions in the next day or two would help keep a fire from moving any closer to Jean Marie River.

The community was placed under an evacuation alert on the weekend, as a wildfire burned about 14 kilometres from the community. As of Tuesday afternoon, it had not moved any closer.

Residents are being asked to keep their cars full of gas and gather important documents in case the community needs to evacuate later. 

The weekend alert was the second one issued for Jean Marie River this summer due to the same wildfire, FS014. The first evacuation alert, issued on July 7, was downgraded to an evacuation notice a few days later.

"We are just on standby to see what is going to be the next step. We're hoping for rain," said Melanie Norwegian Menacho, the chief of Jean Marie River First Nation, on Tuesday.

"There's a lot of smoke."

She said some First Nation members went up in a helicopter earlier to get a look at the fire.

In an update on Tuesday, N.W.T. Fire said they were expecting "extreme fire behaviour" from the 6,400-hectare FS014 fire because of dry conditions and strong winds. However, it said "threats of encroachment in Jean Marie River" had lessened because of the direction of the winds.

Officials said they were busy building a containment line to prevent the fire from moving further south toward Jean Marie River. That involves burning some vegetation to strengthen the line.

Fire crews from Fort Simpson and Fort Smith were also in Jean Marie River on Tuesday to install sprinklers and do other structure protection work.

Officials also said on Tuesday that the community of Fort Simpson was not currently at threat from the fire.