Loading Is Something Burning Near Yellowknife?…
The active wildfires the national fire map lists near the city right now — each one's stage of control and size — with the official NWT Fire channels that matter in an evacuation.
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The boreal forest around Yellowknife burns every summer.
ZF061-26 — 63 kilometres west of town (in the region), out of control. 30 more fires in range.
As of August 23 at 7:51 p.m..
| Fire | Where | Stage of control | Size |
|---|---|---|---|
| ZF061-26 | 63 kilometres west | Out of control | 16 hectares |
| ZF085-26 | 79 kilometres southwest | Out of control | 80 hectares |
| ZF044-26 | 96 kilometres east | Out of control | 2,450 hectares |
| ZF033-26 | 104 kilometres northeast | Out of control | 276 hectares |
| ZF037-26 | 109 kilometres northeast | Out of control | 43,300 hectares |
| ZF084-26 | 112 kilometres northeast | Out of control | 90 hectares |
| SS035-26 | 122 kilometres southeast | Out of control | 211 hectares |
| ZF082-26 | 126 kilometres west | Out of control | 20 hectares |
| ZF028-26 | 129 kilometres northwest | Out of control | 47,000 hectares |
| SS053-26 | 144 kilometres southwest | Out of control | 15 hectares |
| ZF077-26 | 150 kilometres north | Out of control | 1,090 hectares |
| SS052-26 | 168 kilometres south | Under control | 13 hectares |
| SS046-26 | 179 kilometres south | Under control | 63 hectares |
| SS017-26 | 180 kilometres southeast | Out of control | under a hectare |
| ZF045-26 | 185 kilometres northeast | Out of control | 3,500 hectares |
| ZF059-26 | 191 kilometres northeast | Out of control | 2,750 hectares |
| SS054-26 | 200 kilometres south | Out of control | 545 hectares |
| ZF083-26 | 220 kilometres west | Out of control | 2,730 hectares |
| 2026WB9 | 222 kilometres south | Under control | 760 hectares |
| SS004-26 | 224 kilometres south | Being held | 737 hectares |
| 2026WB24 | 236 kilometres south | Out of control | under a hectare |
| ZF051-26 | 237 kilometres east | Out of control | 2,070 hectares |
| 2026WB14 | 237 kilometres south | Being held | 2,405 hectares |
| ZF053-26 | 238 kilometres northeast | Out of control | 130 hectares |
| ZF029-26 | 238 kilometres northwest | Out of control | 30,331 hectares |
| 2026WB4 | 243 kilometres south | Under control | 51,780 hectares |
| 2026WB3 | 243 kilometres south | Under control | 2 hectares |
| ZF055-26 | 244 kilometres north | Out of control | 810 hectares |
| ZF038-26 | 244 kilometres northeast | Out of control | 275 hectares |
| ZF039-26 | 247 kilometres north | Out of control | 153,000 hectares |
| ZF019-26 | 250 kilometres east | Out of control | 7,016 hectares |
“Being held” means the fire is not expected to grow past its current size in the conditions of the day; “under control” means it is not expected to spread at all. Both can still be smoking and worked on for weeks. A fire’s size and stage lag the ground, especially in its first hours.
This page is not an alert system
Most of the smoke that settles over Yellowknife drifts in from fires hundreds of kilometres off, not a fire at the edge of town. If the air is hazy but this page shows nothing close, the smoke and the nearest fire are usually two different stories — check the air-quality tool and Environment Canada for the haze.
In August 2023 the whole city, Ndilǫ, Dettah and the Ingraham Trail were ordered out as fire approached; about 19,000 people left down the single Highway 3 corridor and didn't return until September. The fire was held off. A quiet map today is not a promise — when an order comes it can come quickly, so follow the official alerts, don't wait for a fire to appear here.
Yellowknife is linked to the south by Highway 3 alone, across the Deh Cho Bridge. In a fire emergency that single corridor is the evacuation route, which is part of why orders here are issued early and cover a wide area.
Checked August 23 at 7:51 p.m.. Data: Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC) / Natural Resources Canada, licensed under the Open Government Licence – Canada. The map aggregates the provinces’ and territories’ fire agencies; new starts can take time to appear, so a quiet map is not a guarantee that nothing is burning.
ZF061-26 — 63 kilometres west
in the region · 30 more active incidents in range.