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Former NWT MP Michael McLeod is unsatisfied with how the GNWT has managed the Fort Providence wildfire.

Several videos making the rounds on social media show McLeod lambasting Premier R.J. Simpson and Municipal and Community Affairs (MACA) Minister Vince McKay during a Sept. 2 information meeting in Hay River.

"You're doing a <expletive> job," McLeod said in the videos. "You've put our houses at risk. They're telling us they can't provide the resources to help us protect our community. They put sprinklers on top of our houses and kick us out of town and hope like hell nothing burns.

"I want to ask the premier: it's August, and you don't have the team to be able to protect our communities. With what (McKay) has been doing up till now, our community is going to burn. Whether it's our community, Whati, or Jean Marie, some place is going to burn because you don't do anything until the fire is at our doorstep. Will you consider turning back the responsibility for firefighting in the Northwest Territories to the federal government so they will help us?

"We live in Indigenous communities. You guys are providing us nothing to prevent fires. Nothing. Not one drop of fire retardant in my community. Not one water bomber dropped a load yet. That's an embarrassment," McLeod continued. "You can't do it — it's obvious you can't do it. Will you consider devolving (firefighting) back to the federal government so they can look after our safety?"

Following McLeod's critique, McKay said there were structural protection teams in place as of Aug. 31.

"I realize there's some frustration and anger," the minister said. "I do hear former MP McLeod here speak. I've worked closely with MP McLeod for many years, even [during] my time as town councillor in Hay River when he was the former minister of MACA. I have much respect for him, so I do hear his questions.

"As a person who's lived in Hay River, who's been through a lot of evacuations myself, I do understand what you guys are going through. It's not easy. It's frustrating," McKay added. "As soon as I heard there was an emergency in [Fort Providence], a regional emergency management organization was set up."

NWT Fire information officer Mike Westwick told ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø that firefighting has been a responsibility of the NWT since 1987 and the decision action the fire at the level it was done was made in conjunction with community leaders following multiple flyovers of the blaze in both July and early August.

Westwick said at the time of those flyovers, the fire was limited to prairie regions and it was decided to allow the fire to continue as it would be a benefit to bison habitat. He added that the wildfire only became a danger to the community following an Aug. 30-31 dry cold front that sucked up any available moisture and brought high winds into the area, which led to the fire spreading south towards the community rapidly.

"We used every opening we have had to protect the community — using all the aircraft we could, marshalling a huge amount of heavy equipment, and getting an ignition operation off to protect the community as soon as we had an opening," said Westwick. "Visibility has been extremely poor, with heavy smoke sustained over many weeks — not just on this fire, but fires across the South Slave, North Slave and Deh Cho regions.

"This has meant extremely limited ability to use air tankers. Whenever there have been openings, we have used air tankers to tamp down fire activity. However, we will not compromise safety of our air and ground crews with unsafe missions — that is a matter of principle. Furthermore, there are rules around visibility minimums for flying. Air tankers have higher visibility minimums than helicopters, given the highly complex work they do — dropping water and fire retardant from extremely low heights with huge machines.

"Our job is bring people home safe at the end of the day. We will not compromise their safety," Westwick said.

He added that the only active federal firefighting force is operated by Parks Canada.