Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, before I answer that question, I have to thank the Member from Hay River South, Hay River North, the Deh Cho, as well as Chief Martel and her council and Mayor Jameson and her council. They showed strong leadership. There was a number of volunteers that helped here in various other communities. So, again, I thank them very much for this.
In regards to the questions, given preseason forecasting for high conditions in the southern NWT this summer, the GNWT took a number of actions to be prepared for an earlier and challenging fire season. We brought on more fire crews this year and testing and training for fire crews in the south NWT has been completed by the time fire had started. We added additional aircraft support for this season and had them start two weeks earlier.
When the KFN and Hay River fire started, we already had an Electra air tanker and helicopter on the ground in Hay River to begin the work on the fire on that first day and brought in additional helicopters from Fort Smith and the second Electra aircraft from Alberta. A second ECC contracted NWT-based Electra and four Fire Boss air tanker, which had also been brought on strength earlier this year, started working on the fire that next day. As well, we had crews that were on the reserve with Evergreen. There was four of them, and we were able to -- the next day, we had six crews there right away. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.