So this post is a little more serious than usual... The NWT is having one of its worst fire seasons ever. As of July 13, 2014 there have been a total of 173 forest fires up here, only 30 of which have been extinguished. This has effected a total of 842,311.33 square hectares, or roughly 8423.1 square kilometres. That's an area slightly smaller than Puerto Rico, or roughly 0.7% of the total area of the Northwest Territories (total land area 1,143,793.47 square kilometres) but it's still an area large enough to be considered catastrophic.
The live fire map shows us a continuous update of what's going on with forest fires here in the NWT- you can easily access it at the link provided beneath the map.
According to Finance Minister Michael Miltenberger, “At one point we were going through a million dollars a day,” trying to keep populated communities, highways and essential services safe and fully functioning. A local hospital has seen twice the average number of lung complaints (source) thanks to the massive fluctuations in air quality. (I've become rather obsessed with watching the AQI fluctuate between Yellow (decent but not great), Purple (bad), and Dark Maroon (Really, Really bad) for a while now... needless to say the windows are only open when the air quality is hovering at some level of green.
According to Finance Minister Michael Miltenberger, “At one point we were going through a million dollars a day,” trying to keep populated communities, highways and essential services safe and fully functioning. A local hospital has seen twice the average number of lung complaints (source) thanks to the massive fluctuations in air quality. (I've become rather obsessed with watching the AQI fluctuate between Yellow (decent but not great), Purple (bad), and Dark Maroon (Really, Really bad) for a while now... needless to say the windows are only open when the air quality is hovering at some level of green.
The Huffington Post has put together an excellent collection of images taken of the fires and surrounding areas, you can view them HERE At the end of the day, the NWT really needs some positive thoughts, prayers and a really good rain dance or two. | |