2023 Northwest Territories Wildfire History
The Government of the Northwest Territories described 2023 as an unprecedented wildfire season. A GNWT review announcement reports 303 wildfires affecting more than 4.1 million hectares, with extensive community evacuations and the first wildfire-related loss of homes within NWT communities. FireRadar preserves those source-defined figures rather than reconciling them with differently scoped later review statistics.
GNWT season-review announcement
GNWT season-review announcement
Multiple NWT communities evacuated during the season
What stands out about 2023
Extreme drought, record temperatures and high winds produced unusually severe fire behaviour across the territory.
GNWT reporting documents community evacuations and wildfire impacts on homes and infrastructure, making 2023 a historically consequential NWT season beyond the headline area-burned total.
Later reviews can use different incident and area scopes; FireRadar does not silently merge those figures into a synthetic total.
Official source
Government of Northwest Territories — 2023 wildfire response review announcement. Official season-impact summary reporting 303 wildfires and more than 4.1 million hectares affected.
Review source material →What this page does not claim
This is not a reconstruction of every day in 2023, proof of a fire’s status on a particular date or a substitute for agency incident archives. FireRadar’s interactive history begins with its first recorded observation.
Read FireRadar archive boundaries →