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Evacuation - Lessons from the 2023 Mayo Evacuation

visarrazin

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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