Transportation authorities in the Northwest Territories say the highway out of a community near the Alberta boundary that’s being evacuated due to wildfires has now closed.
Authorities had been warning that Highway 5 into Fort Smith could be shut as a nearby fire continued to burn, and on Sunday afternoon the territory’s infrastructure department said the route was no longer open.
Evacuation orders were issued Saturday for Fort Smith, with a population of about 2,000, as well as for Smith’s Landing First Nation and the Alberta hamlet of Fort Fitzgerald.
Fort Smith Mayor Fred Daniels said in a video posted online shortly before the highway shut that its closure could be imminent, and that the last evacuation bus would leave the community at 2 p.m. local time.
Daniels thanked residents for the “awesome evacuation” which he said “went smoothly.”
He said the winds in Fort Smith were “really picking up” and that it would likely get very smoky in Fort Smith.