Scores of Mayo residents began returning home Sunday afternoon after Yukon Protective Services rescinded the evacuation order officials had issued on Aug. 6.

After just over a week of evacuation due to worsening wildfire situations, residents from the village and properties along the Silver Trail between Kilometres 35 and 66 can now go home.

The evacuation order was cancelled at 1 p.m. Sunday.

Notices posted via Facebook by Yukon Protective Services and the Wildfire Hub website indicate that the community remains under an evacuation alert, and the Facebook post advises residents in the area to remain vigilant.

“Crews remain on the ground securing the western and northern flanks of the Talbot Creek fire (MA-033) located south of town and have begun to remove structure protection from around town,” states the Wildfire Hub.

“Protective Services will continue to monitor the situation closely and the public will be notified of any changes,” said the Facebook post.

The website also indicates that there have not been any new fires, and crews are focused on managing existing wildfires.

A Yukon Protective Services Facebook post yesterday informed evacuees that gasoline and transportation support is available.

“For those driving, please keep your gas receipts and take a photo of the receipt as back-up. If you require further gas support, please contact McGarry Selbee, acting executive director, First Nation of Na-Cho Nyäk Dun.

“If you require transportation back to Mayo, call or text McGarry Selbee at 867-383-2265,” reads the post.

Mayor Trevor Ellis told the Star this morning that between 200 and 250 people were evacuated from the area.

“As soon as the order was lifted, they started trickling back into town right away,” he said.

Ellis, who is also a firefighter, remained in the area, along with 10 other firefighters who stayed to help the volunteer fire department with structural protection.

He said the fire is still active but the wet weather over the past couple of days has done a number on it.

“We’ll wait and see what the weather is like in the next coming weeks to see what the fire does,” he said.

“But I think that the Wildland Fire Management team has done a great job of getting a really good fire line in and and hopefully we don’t get any unseasonably hot weather in the next few weeks and hopefully everything should be fine into the fall.”

Ellis said the area should pretty much be just as residents left it.

“The fire department, along with Wildland Fire, was in people’s yards. So there may be a few things moved around.

“We put sprinklers up in different places, but those have pretty much all been taken down now. So yeah, everything should be as normal as when you left it,” he said.

The mayor said the residents he’s spoken to are happy to return home.

“You know, you don’t think of a week away as being a lot but when it’s kind of forced upon you, it’s a pretty huge inconvenience.

“And those people as well have jobs in the community, so I’m sure that everybody’s looking forward to returning to normal,” he said.

Haley Ritchie, a fire information officer with Yukon Wildfire Management, told the Star this morning that the fire received 20 milimetres of rain during the past weekend.

“Over the weekend, the fire received about 20 millimeters of rain. So that’s really good,” she said.

The rain was not enough to put out the fire, and smoke is still visible, but it does lessen the fire’s behaviour, making it easier for crews to enter and do their job.

“In this case, we’re most focused on the perimeter where there was a risk of spread towards town,” she said.

“So for us, that’s part of the northern section, but particularly there’s a northwest corner that crews are focused on right now.”

The northwest corner is south of the Stewart River, south of Mayo.

“On the north perimeter, a 4.5 kilometres section has been secured 100 feet into the burnt area. So crews work on that perimeter and that means 100 feet from the edge has been secured,” she said.

“So it’s cool, there’s no hotspot, no chance of spread.”

Ritchie said crews will also be working on the west side down to the Talbot Creek.

“It’ll be ground personnel, so there’s 37 firefighters from a lot of different jurisdictions there today working on that, and they’re getting help from helicopters too.

“So people in Mayo will see helicopters bucketing the fire. It doesn’t mean the fire is making a run or anything like that; they’re just identifying hotspots, areas where they’re still trying to put those out,” she said.

“We want people to be aware that there’s still a lot of firefighters in town so there’s an increased level of traffic in Mayo right now. So we want people to be careful when driving around, watch for personnel, watch for equipment.

“And firefighters are living and taking meals and the team is working out of the Village of Mayo community hall,” Ritchie added.

“So we’re asking people to avoid visiting the hall right now so we can just focus on firefighting operations.”

Two public meetings were set to be held in Mayo today to give residents the opportunity to ask questions and chat.

An information officer was at Government House early this afternoon.

From 5 to 6 p.m. today, the volunteer fire department will have a brief information session with an updated map of the fire. They will also answer questions from the public about the current status of the Talbot Creek fire (MA-033).

Ellis thanked the Yukon community for helping Mayo out during the evacuation.

“From what I was told, there were a lot of events held in Whitehorse, a lot of generosity shared with Mayo residents,” he said.

“And thanks to the Yukon government, thanks to Wildland Fire Management for all that they did. The First Nation played a huge part in making this evacuation as painless as can be. So I just wanted to thank everybody that was involved in keeping the community safe,” he said.

According to the Wildfire Hub website, there are 141 Active wildfires in Yukon, 148,135 total hectares have been burned and 65 wildfires have been extinguished.

The Hub also says:

The Yukon government continues to support the Vuntut Gwitchin government’s evacuation order of Old Crow. Aircraft reconnaissance of the fires took place on Friday.

The community remains secure and fire crews were able to take direct action by using bucket operations on OC-009 and OC-012.

An evacuation order due to wildfire activity is in place for Old Crow and evacuation alerts are in place for the Village of Mayo and the Sixty Mile area south of the Top of the World Highway.

There are no campfire bans in place right now.

Normal summer burning rules must be followed across the territory.

N.W.T. grappling with wildfires too.