In early August 2023 a wildfire threatened the town of Mayo and the Nacho Nyak Dun First
Nation. Initially an evacuation alert for Mayo was issued when the fire was roughly 8 km from
town. This was followed with an evacuation order two days later when the fire had moved
another km closer to town. The evacuation order lasted for 8 days after which time an
evacuation alert was re-issued for a further 10-day period.
Loomex Group of Peterborough, Ontario were hired to assess the response to this wildfire to
learn what worked, what didn’t and how to fix it. It has valuable lessons for Whitehorse too.
1. Confusing Communications to Public – in emergencies, public communications are
difficult. This is made worse if there is no public education on emergency preparedness
beforehand so the public have clear expectations of what information to expect and
which department(s) has/have the authority to “call the shots”.
2. Incomplete Emergency Plans – there is need for practical exercises to identify
weaknesses, both in Mayo and Whitehorse. In the case of Whitehorse, the current
Emergency Plan also doesn’t address the needs of the hospital and long-term care
homes.
3. Collaboration – the review recommends the establishment of community advisory
working groups including community members to improve emergency plans, capacity
and preparedness. As in Mayo, Whitehorse needs mutual aid arrangements with
communities on potential evacuation routes.
4. Traffic Control – in Mayo there was a lack of control on evacuation routes and for
check-in/check-out procedures.
5. Jurisdictional coordination. There is a need to ensure there is coordination of
evacuation declarations so that alerts and orders are developed and issued in a
coordinated and consistent manner by all jurisdictional authorities involved.
Whitehorse has recently updated its Public Safety Protection Plan but it still has serious gaps.
With municipal elections taking place this autumn, the need for a complete plan tested through a
practical exercise is essential.
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