Wildland Urban Interface Program Launches, Strengthening Community Safety

Today, a new tool in the Northwest Territories wildfire and community emergency response toolkit was unveiled. The Government of the Northwest Territories (GNWT), in partnership with the Northwest Territories Fire Chiefs Association, is implementing a new territorial-wide Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) program.

The program advances the GNWT's mandate of safer communities and directly addresses a key gap identified in the 2023 wildfire operations review: the need for stronger integration between wildland and structural firefighting during community wildfire threats.

Wildland urban interface is the area where development, like towns and infrastructure, meets or intermingles with the natural environment (forests, etc.). WUI programs are designed to minimize the impact of these fires, which are more complex than isolated structural or wildland fire, by reducing their likelihood and severity, inhibiting their spread and improving the effectiveness of community response.

The NWT WUI program will focus on training community structural firefighters in wildland-urban interface response, so that wildfire response efforts across the territory will be stronger and more effective when fire approaches communities, infrastructure and property. The program establishes a coordinated system for mutual aid during WUI events, integrating wildfire and structural firefighting capabilities.

Through this WUI program, local structural firefighters are trained in a variety of areas, including deploying sprinkler systems to reduce structure damage and operating fire trucks and engines within communities impacted by wildfire. These are just two examples of the new skills they learn. The program also focuses on strengthening community protection plans, ensuring each community has the knowledge needed to respond appropriately and use the right strategies to maximize capacity and improve their chances of reducing damage in the wildland-urban interface.

By focusing on these areas, we will build specialized capabilities locally to ensure communities are better prepared and protected when wildfires approach, reducing reliance on private and out-of-territory mutual aid resources when WUI events happen.

This ensures the right expertise is applied to the right tasks, improving safety and effectiveness in increasingly complex wildfire events.

Comprehensive guidelines and a training strategy have been developed to support the program.

The program will be reviewed annually by the Wildland Urban Interface Coordinating Group, applying a continuous improvement philosophy.

Quotes

"Wildland and structural firefighters share the same goal - keeping people safe, while protecting the places we love. This new Wildland Urban Interface program gives us another tool in our toolkit to lessen the impact of wildfires. With our territory on the front lines of climate change, we must be increasingly prepared for events like wildfires. The WUI program strengthens how we protect communities from wildfire by ensuring the right personnel and equipment are in the right place at the right time. This is a cooperative, coordinated effort that also shows how important it is that the solutions we find are collaborative and have us working together in the right direction. NWT's WUI program is a clear step forward in being ready for emergencies and in building safer communities across the Northwest Territories."

- Jay Macdonald, Minister of Environment and Climate Change

"Community structural fire departments across the territory have always played a critical role in keeping communities safe during wildfires. The missing piece exposed in 2023 was a strong, coordinated system to support them in doing so. This new Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) program is a great example of what we can achieve when we work together, collaborating across government departments, communities and organizations. This program helps us utilize the skills and abilities of people in the communities to speed up our response times and make us more effective at protecting the places we call home. As a government, we are actively delivering on our commitment to being ready for emergencies - this program plays an important piece. The advancement of this program ensures an integration of professionals becomes central to the culture of our fire services, while supporting communities across the NWT."

- Vince McKay, Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs

"The experience from the 2023 wildfire season revealed a significant gap in the coordinated response to WUI incidents in communities across the NWT. Fire departments recognized that they have a crucial role in protecting communities when threatened by wildfires. As a result, the NWT Fire Chiefs Association (FCA) and GNWT initiated efforts to develop a solution that would enhance the coordination of resources needed for community protection in the NWT. I am proud to say that, through this collaboration, we have established a WUI program for the NWT. This program is based on the collective experiences gained since 2023 and aims to establish a coordinated response involving all departments responsible for community protection against wildfires. We share a common goal of keeping people and communities safe. By establishing this program, we have set standards for equipment, training, and deployment, as well as outlined the processes for coordinating personnel and resources to ensure a unified protection without delay."

- Travis Wright, President of the NWT Fire Chiefs Association and Fire Chief for the Town of Hay River

Quick facts

• The guidelines and supporting materials for the WUI program were co-developed by the GNWT and NWT Fire Chiefs Association.
• The Wildland Urban Interface Coordinating Group was established in 2025, with representatives from the GNWT's departments of Environment and Climate Change and Municipal and Community Affairs, alongside two members of the NWT Fire Chiefs Association executive.
• The program establishes predictable and standardized deployment procedures and provides guidance to both municipal and wildfire services in how to integrate the program into their operations.
• The program establishes predictable reimbursement rates for both mutual-aid-providing fire departments and local fire departments integrated into wildfire incidents.
• The program responds to recommendations of the 2023 wildfire operations review.

For media requests, please contact:
Cabinet Communications
Executive and Indigenous Affairs
Government of the Northwest Territories
[email protected]

Mike Westwick
Manager, Prevention and Mitigation
Environment and Climate Change
Government of the Northwest Territories
[email protected]
(867)765-8557

Peter Tah
Manager, Public Affairs and Communications
Municipal and Community Affairs
Government of the Northwest Territories
[email protected]
867-767-9162