New BrunswickSome New Brunswick municipalities use their own alert notification system to keep people in the loop during wildfire season. The system lets administrators tailor their own messages for subscribed residents.Communities send wildfire updates directly to subscribed residents Oliver Pearson · CBC News · Posted: Sep 23, 2025 5:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 2 hours agoMunicipalities like Miramichi have been using the Voyent Alert! system to get accurate information to residents about local wildfires. Miramichi sent dozens of alerts during the peak of wildfire season. (Michael Heenan/CBC)Affected residents of New Brunswick’s busy wildfire season have found some comfort in a new alert system employed by municipalities to combat misinformation, municipal officials say.The summer saw 380 fires just over 2,600 hectares, up from the province’s 10-year average of 408 hectares a year. The province considers wildfire season as starting in late April and running until Oct. 31.Wildfires in August prompted intermittent evacuation advisories telling residents to pack up their belongings and get ready to leave their homes.Complementing these advisories, in some communities, was the Voyent Alert! notification system. It allowed municipalities to reach subscribed residents through an app, text, email or a text-to-speech phone call. WATCH | This is what Miramichi’s wildfire alert system looks like: Local alert system keeps residents updated on nearby wildfiresThis wildfire season has been well above average in New Brunswick, leaving residents worried. Some municipalities have deployed their own alert systems to help keep people up to date on local fires.In August, 25 communities in the province used the system, with 50,000 residents signed up.One of those communities is Alnwick, which was threatened by the Oldfield Road fire that is now being patrolled by the province. The fire is New Brunswick’s longest-burning and largest at 1,403 hectares.”It’s not a nice thing when there’s people … even if you don’t know them and there’s fire not too far from them. It’s a scary thought,” said Alnwick Mayor Ernest Robichaud.The community didn’t have the alert system before August, but with wildfire rumours stirring in the rural area just north of Miramichi, Robichaud made the move to set it up.”That was a rumour going around. … One of the councillors came in that morning, and they said, ‘I think it jumped the Bartibog River.’ And I said, ‘I don’t think so.'”It was that afternoon we signed up, and it was put out right away that it did not jump the Bartibog River.”He said in times of emergency, misinformation needs to be dispelled.The municipality that was established during local governance reform in 2023 has roughly 3,700 residents, and 1,345 people subscribed to its alert system in August.Alnwick Mayor Ernest Robichaud signed his municipality up for the Voyent Alert! system when he realized how misinformation could be an issue with wildfires in the area. (Oliver Pearson/CBC)During the fires peak last month, Robichaud met with the province’s Emergency Measures Organization and Department of Natural Resources each morning for an update on the fire. That update turned into one of a few daily alerts that went directly to residents.The City of Miramichi also sent alerts — as many as six a day.Gail Harding, the city’s communications officer, said her team was sending out information as soon as it became available from the province.”A lot of people in the beginning were very desperate for information because the provincial government wasn’t always updating as fast as people thought they should be updating. There was a criticism of that in the beginning,” Harding said. Miramichi launched its alert system in October 2024 and by July of this year, it had around 1,000 subscribers. By the end of August, that number spiked to 6,500 subscribers.Harding estimates the city’s population at 22,000 people.The Oldfield Road fire burned just over 1,400 hectares in the Miramichi area, including Alnwick, which is just north of the city. (Michael Heenan/CBC)She explained that the system can work for everyone, especially in rural communities with older residents.”Not everybody is on social media, not everybody’s on Facebook or X or Instagram. But we were able to issue the alerts and … you have a choice of how you receive the alerts.”Harding said that from Aug. 8 to Aug. 24, Miramichi issued about 40 alerts about trail closures, road closures, evacuation alerts and the status of the fire.In August, 1.5 million alerts were sent to Voyent users nationwide, and about 450,000 were sent to New Brunswick-based subscribers, said Brian McKinney, the president and CEO of ICEsoft Technologies, which owns Voyent Alert!.In a statement sent by email, he said the system is designed to integrate with existing provincial and federal alerting systems. The notifications can be tailored to specific areas such as one block of a neighbourhood. McKinney said the mobile app alert is the preferred mode of communication for roughly 65 per cent of all registrants.Gail Harding, the communications officer for the City of Miramichi, says subscribers to the city’s alert service rose during August from about 1,000 to 6,500 because of wildfire interest. (Oliver Pearson/CBC)Harding said Miramichi wasn’t using the system much prior to this wildfire season, but officials would like to be more active in the future.”The plan going forward [is] to use it to issue especially more informational alerts pertaining to city events, city meetings, closures,” Harding said.McKinney said roughly 80 per cent of communities “use the system for more day-to-day communications ranging from service disruption notices, water quality advisories to road and facility closure notices, local events.”Robichaud said he’s considering uses for the system other than future wildfires.”With this here, global warming and everything there … it don’t look like it’s gonna get any better. So there could be more fires like this every year,” he said.ABOUT THE AUTHOROliver Pearson is a reporter at CBC New Brunswick. He can be reached at oliver.pearson@cbc.ca
Some N.B. municipalities are using their own alert systems this wildfire season
