As the wildfire spreads to more than 3,500 hectares, more than 200 people leave the site
This weekend, a wildfire that was out of control kept growing northwest of Keno City in the Yukon. As a result, over 200 people had to leave the nearby Eagle mine site.
Monday, a warning to leave was put up for the mine and most of South McQuesten Road in the Dublin Gulch Area. At the time, it was thought that the fire, which is in an area of wilderness with no people, was about 2,600 hectares in size. Since then, it has grown to more than 3,500 hectares.
Yukon Wildland Fire Management had to tell the Eagle mine, which is owned by Victoria Gold, to leave on Saturday night. The rest of Dublin Gulch Area is still on high alert.
“I don’t have an exact number, but it’s very close,” fire information officer Mike Fancie told CBC on Sunday morning.
He said it was hard to decide to evacuate, but the fire had grown too big for the current response, which consists of 24 firefighters, an air-tanker group, a helicopter, and a “incident management team.”
Crews are still fighting the fire, and a small group is still at the Eagle mine to manage the site and help with the response, but about 240 people have been evacuated, said Victoria Gold CEO John McConnell.
McConnell said he’s looking forward to the next few days.
He said Sunday, “We have a lot of sprinklers and water monitors, so I’m pretty sure we can protect the infrastructure.”
“Firefighters did make some progress yesterday and into the night, so we’re cautiously optimistic that crews will be able to return to the site as soon as tomorrow.”
McConnell said that if the fire spreads to the mine site, there are no environmental concerns because there are no tailings ponds there. Now that most of the workers have left, the biggest danger is to the infrastructure of the site.
He said he hopes to meet with the Yukon government after the evacuation is over to talk about how the fire response could have been better in the early days of the fire, which started on July 20, to keep from having to take such drastic steps again.
No one from the Yukon government was available right away to talk about how the fire was dealt with.
McConnell said that the Yukon workers at the mine have now been sent home, and some of them have been flown to Vancouver. A few dozen have also been sent to Banyon Gold Corporation’s camps near the Silver Trail Highway.
“That’s what you do when you live close by,” said Tara Christie, the president and CEO of Banyan.
Christie said that the company has slowed down operations at these sites out of a “abundance of caution,” but that wildfires are not currently threatening its camps or infrastructure. She said that she wants more help to fight the fire so that it doesn’t spread to mines, roads, or places with people.