Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are related to the recent wildfires which caused widespread evacuations and total destruction to properties. The wildfire at Enterprise was burning prior to the devastating day of August 13th.
Can the Minister of ECC apprise this House as to why the wildfire near the hamlet of Enterprise was allowed to burn out of control for several days prior to the devastation and evacuation of the residents? Mahsi.
Thank you, Member for Deh Cho. Minister responsible for Environment and Climate Change.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I can assure this House that the wildfire that impacted the community of Enterprise received initial attack and was actioned consistently prior to the disaster of August 13th. The fire was initially identified on August 2nd and an initial attack within two hours. I repeat, two hours.
Within two hours, that grew the fire grew from three hectares to 120 hectares with extreme weather conditions that include very strong winds. The fire was actioned by crews and/or aircraft as conditions allowed from the time it was discovered but the extreme fire conditions and extreme fire behaviour made fighting the fire very challenging and limited ability to for ignition operations to be completed. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker, and mahsi to the Minister for the all the information that they were fighting the fires prior to. And it's kind of confusing because the fires kind of snuck up to the community on that day, you know, after all the Department of ECC and fire management help have all the necessary tools and information at their fingertips to determine whether wind and wind speed, yet these systems seemed to have failed on that day or just prior to that day.
Can the Minister apprise this House as to why these factors and tools were not taken into account prior to the devastating day? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to state again that the fire was actioned as conditions allowed from start on August 2nd. The tragic event on August 13th were because of the environmental conditions and extreme wind event. Wind gusted higher than forecasted in the area that already had severe drought and burning conditions. Our team worked with the best information available from the beginning of this fire and used the tools and approaches available to us. The unfortunate reality is that we had a perfect storm of buildup of forest fuel, very high drought codes, and extreme wind event, extremely challenging fire behaviour, that resulted in this situation. I recognize the impact that this devastating loss had on the hamlet of Enterprise, and my thoughts are with them. We had been in the community on September 5th and 11th with the senior officials to discuss the fire event on August 13th.
Mr. Speaker, I had the opportunity to talk to a number of incident commanders, as well as we brought in our old retired firefighters that had dealt with fires in the past and they basically all said the same thing. We were in a situation that was unique to the us. They've never seen it before. We've seen disaster this fire react; we didn't expect it to do. So we did everything we could. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. And mahsi to the Minister for that. Mr. Speaker, I understand other wildfires at other communities were happening at the same time, and the fire attack crews may have been spread out.
Can the Minister apprise this House why no fire attack crews were at Enterprise although the fire was at their doorstep for days? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the fire was more than 30 kilometers away from Enterprise for days before it impacted the community. The fire was closer to Kakisa before this extreme wind event pushed it towards the community of Enterprise, which was further than predicted by models. Aircraft and crews actioned this fire consistently as conditions allowed throughout their response beginning with initial attack on August 2nd. The fire impacted on Enterprise was not a result of crews being spread out, but it was a result of extreme wind event and environmental conditions. This caused the fire to burn at extreme intensity and speed driven by wind which was made worse by severe drought and built up fuel in the environment causing explosive conditions. It is important to note that there are times crews and aircrafts were not able to fight the fire due to smoke and the fast movement of the fires. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Deh Cho.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker, and mahsi to the Minister. Mr. Speaker, we hear of a couple of brothers from Enterprise, along with other volunteers, putting out fires that were continually flaring up throughout the community of Enterprise after the initial wildfire. They note that there were no ECC fire crews for more than five days to assist and this was well after the main fire tore through the hamlet.
Can the Minister apprise this House as to why no fire crews were available in the community to monitor and fight the fires? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Member talked about those two brothers who were helping and, again, I say thank you very much to them for the work that they did there.
Mr. Speaker, after the wildfire hit the community, many of the flareups that were associated with this were structural fires. Our wildfire firefighters are not trained in this. That there was very much about structural firefighters that need to do the work there.
While meeting with the hamlet, we are made aware of these concerns and are committed to looking into this in an after-action review. ECC is still working on fires and once the season is complete, the after-action review will be the number 1 priority. So we will be working on it. And some of this the challenges that the Member talked about is our wildfire fighters do not fight structural fires. That there is volunteer firefighters or fire crews. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
