While it’s been done in the past, the N.W.T. won’t be relying on staff in towers to detect fires on the landscape. That’s according to Mike Gravel, the director of the N.W.T. government’s forest management division. His comment was in response to Dehcho MLA Sheryl Yakeleya during a committee meeting Monday to discuss the Department of Environment and Climate Change’s response to the 2023 wildfire season. Yakeleya said she’d like to see a return to the use of towers as a detection method. Gravel, however, said there’s been an industry-wide shift away from the practice because of safety concerns. The question was part of a larger conversation around the use of Indigenous traditional knowledge in fighting fires and forest management. “Traditional knowledge plays a big role in how we fight fire in the Northwest Territories,” said Jay Macdonald, minister of Environment and Climate Change.