N.W.T. gov’t wasn’t prepared for ‘unprecedented conditions’ in 2023 wildfire season, review finds
New wildfire modelling software, more mental health support for firefighters, and better systems for combating misinformation are among the dozens of recommendations included in a new report looking at how the N.W.T. government dealt with last summer’s unprecedented and catastrophic wildfires in the territory.
The report, released Wednesday, is based on a third-party review commissioned by the territorial government last year.
Calgary-based consulting firm MNP was hired to do the review which focused on the department of Environment and Climate Change’s (ECC) preparedness and response to the 2023 wildfire season. It’s one of two reviews commissioned by the territory; the other, which looks at the government’s overall response, is expected later this year.
The territorial government opted for the third-party reviews but not a public inquiry into the 2023 wildfire response, despite MLAs voting in favour of an inquiry last winter.
The N.W.T. government releases the first of two independent reviews into the 2023 wildfire response.
MNP’s 212-page report is based on interviews with territorial government staff, municipal authorities and Indigenous communities, as well as analyses of ECC policies and procedures related to wildfire. The review did not focus on the 19 community evacuations or the communications around those evacuations.
The 2023 wildfire season in the N.W.T., and across Canada, was unlike any before it. Prolonged hot, dry conditions saw 306 wildfires burn more than 3.4 million hectares across the N.W.T. There were 138 temperature records broken in the territory in May 2023 alone.
One firefighter died on the job, near Fort Liard in July of that year. In Enterprise, N.W.T., 80 per cent of the community was destroyed. The territory was under a state of emergency from mid-August until early October.
The report also recommends that the territory add a minimum minimum of two firefighting crews of up to 20 people each. At a press conference Wednesday, N.W.T. Environment and Climate Change Minister Jay Macdonald said that recommendation would be discussed by cabinet.
The report notes that ECC and emergency responders “typically manage well” under average wildfire conditions, but that the severity of the 2023 wildfire season “highlighted the limitations” of N.W.T.’s wildfire management program to cope with the “unprecedented conditions.”
Staffing, skills, equipment and misinformation
The report found that the department struggled with a list of things as it responded to the fires, including inadequate staffing and skills training, and “reliance on retired personnel who may not meet current fitness standards or be up to date with modern fire science.”
It also found the division of some responsibilities between jurisdictions was unclear, including between municipalities and Indigenous governments, and that there was a lack of clarity around who should stay behind in evacuated communities.
“This was especially true in Fort Smith when many ECC employees did not evacuate so that they could continue coordinating delivering fire operations. When the communications infrastructure was compromised, they reported feeling highly vulnerable because they had no way of knowing how close the fire was to the community,” the report reads.
There were also problems with equipment management and tracking during the season.
“Some [review] participants shared accounts of pumps, hoses and other equipment being transferred to locations in different regions without proper procedures, equipment being left in the field in unknown locations after suppression activity ended, and equipment in the field being stolen or damaged by community members,” the report reads.
The document also highlights concerns with the department’s incident command system (ICS), which is intended to be a unified system to co-ordinate wildfire response. In July and August 2023, there were frequent staff departures from the ICS, the report says.
Those departures “created challenges with communications, the coordination of wildfire response strategies, and the deployment of resources,” the report reads, while also noting that none of those things were “directly correlated to outcomes such as the loss of structures or the loss of a fire line.”
“I think some of the challenges with the technology certainly could have contributed to this situation,” Macdonald said.
Some people also told MNP they had been appointed to key decision-making roles, such as incident command, without adequate training.
“In a smaller number of cases, participants stated that many people were overwhelmed by a rapidly changing situation and system structures ‘fell apart,'” the report reads.
The department also struggled at times with a lack of clarity around how to counter misinformation circulating online.
Such misinformation “contributed to confusion and increased public safety risks,” the report states.
“While social media was an effective tool for ECC to keep the public informed, it was also used by the public to distribute misinformation. Significant effort was expended by ECC’s communications team to respond to and correct misinformation.”
The review also highlighted a gap affecting the territory’s wildfire-behaviour modelling capabilities for 2024, as the territory has stopped using wildfire modelling software that it had in 2022 and 2023, “in part due to cost increases.”
“It is unclear what ECC’s immediate next steps are regarding future wildfire behaviour,” the report states.
Enterprise and Hay River fires
The report also looked at the response to last year’s wildfires in Enterprise. N.W.T. and Hay River, N.W.T.
It said the use of “short term and outdated” wind forecasts resulted in the government prioritizing the protection of Kakisa,”with no or limited attention” given to the other side of the fire which had the potential to affect Enterprise and Hay River.
It noted that Enterprise hosted 600 people for the Gateway Jamboree in the 24-hour period before the fire burned the community. This, it said, “suggests the fire was not an active concern” and shows a lack of communication to the community.
“It was clear that members of the communities of Hay River and Enterprise were not fully informed and aware of the risks and potential threat of the fire to their west,” the report said.
Mike Gravel, director of forest management, said when those fires happened, “there was a lot going on across the territory,” with the evacuation of Fort Smith and multiple fires threatening communities.
“We were very much stretched as far as our resources,” Gravel said.
This, he said, left only a small team of people to work on the Enterprise and Hay River fires.
Now, Gravel said, fire teams receive daily briefings and the department is “more proactive” in assigning incident management teams to fires.
In terms of capacity going forward, Macdonald said the department is looking to increase its staffing, but that “we rely heavily on other jurisdictions through a mutual aid agreement.” However, he noted that the many wildfires burning across Canada that summer meant those resources were “depleted across the country.”
“So I think it’s not as simple as just what the N.W.T. can do to increase its capacity, but also what Canada does.”
Recommendations and ‘opportunities for improvement’
The report includes 25 recommendations for immediate action, as well as 17 “opportunities for improvement” over the next one to three years.
Some of the recommendations include:
- Improvements to wildfire behaviour-monitoring, including new software.
- Emphasize recruitment and retention of firefighters and add a minimum of two more firefighter crews “to better cope with the frequency of extreme weather events.”
- Expand culturally-appropriate mental health services for firefighters and wildfire management team members.
- Consider starting fire crews earlier in the season.
- Create standard operating procedures for accessing otherwise-engaged aircraft and pilots as needed.
- Provide more incident command system training for more ECC and other N.W.T. government employees.
- Modernize the after-action review system, to ensure such reviews are done.
- Clarify which government departments are responsible for responding to different types of misinformation.
- Better outline jurisdictional responsibilities between ECC, municipalities and Indigenous governments.
- Consolidate the territory’s wildfire management program across regions, with a consolidated budget and financial reporting structure.
Macdonald said the department has already put some of those recommendations in place.
“We are taking the recommendations of this after action review seriously,” he said.
While the territory hasn’t received the final invoice for the review, McDonald said they had budgeted $300,000 to pay for it.
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