Thousands told to evacuate Canada’s Yellowknife city as wildfires spread

The fire could reach the city by Saturday morning.

Residents of Canada’s most northerly city have been told to evacuate as wildfires spread through the northwest territories.

The evacuation order requests that Yellowknife’s 20,000 residents leave by noon on Friday, as the fires extended to less than ten miles from the municipal borders and are set to reach the city by Saturday morning. The order also applies to the surrounding towns of Ndılǫ, Dettah and Ingraham Trail.

Other local communities in northern Canada have already suffered mass destruction as the wildfires spread throughout the region.

The latest fires in Canada, which have seen 20,000 people told t evacuate their homes in the city of Yellowknife, come two months after an outbreak of fires in the country engulfed North American cities including New York (pictured).

Kandis Jameson, mayor of the town of Enterprise, said it had been 90 per cent destroyed, while the nearby community of Hay River was “running out of time” to evacuate.

A family escaping from Hay River said their car began melting around them as they drove away after an evacuation order was issued on Sunday. “It was honestly insane. When I got out of our vehicle in Enterprise, I just cried,” a woman told CBC.

The latest fires come as the US state of Hawaii is still reeling from a devastating wildfire which left 111 dead and wiped out almost the entire town of Lahaina.

It is also just two months since more than 150 fires broke out in Quebec province, forcing 10,000 people from their homes. Thick smoke from the fires blanketed the east coast of North America, prompting warnings by authorities to wear masks outdoors as far away as New York City, where some Broadway performances were cancelled due to stars suffering breathing problems.

Premier Caroline Cochrane urged residents to follow the order to leave. People have been asked to stay with friends and family where possible, with Calgary set to act as the main “hub” for those fleeing the fires.

“I know we are all tired of the word ‘unprecedented’ but there’s no other way to describe the situation in the Northwest Territories,” she said.

“We must take steps to stay calm and not make decisions that are going to put other people and yourselves in danger. When you don’t evacuate, you put yourselves and you put our first responders at risk.”

One man told a CBC radio reporter that he was sent to an evacuation centre more than 600 miles from home, in northern Alberta. “They’re dispersing us all over the place,” he said.

Canada has suffered far greater devastation from wildfires this year than usual.

Recent data released by the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre indicated that in early August – about halfway through the fire season – the number of hectares burned throughout the country was roughly double what is normally burned during an entire season.