BC Wildfire Service crews continue to action fires in the Chilcotin.
Fire Information Officer of the Dean Complex, Mikhail Elsay, said the Beef Trail wildfire North of Anahim Lake is estimated to be 12,359 hectares in size.
“Yesterday (Sept 8) crews were able to complete a pretty large scale planned aerial ignition in conjunction with ground crews to secure the South Eastern corner of this fire. Today (Sept 9) crews are going to continue working on where they left off yesterday securing the line, continuing to mop up and extend along Highway 20 to continue containment.”
Elsay said the Dusty Lake wildfire, 8 kilometres South East of Nimpo Lake/25 kilometres South of Anahim Lake, is currently estimated at 6,118 hectares.
“Crews continue to work on the North Eastern flank now. They were able to create containment on the Northern flank and some of the Western flank over the past couple of days. So they are going to continue working to the North building machine guard then following up with hose and some hand ignitions where it makes sense.”
Elsay said containment continues moving to the North East as well as the South as there are crews working on the Southern corner trying continue progressing to the South and the North East on the Dusty Lake wildfire.
The Itcha Lake wildfire 200 kilometres East of Quesnel is estimated to be 40,000 hectares in size.
Puntzi Creek Complex Fire Information Officer, Paula Walbauer, said they currently have 7 firefighters on that fire along with structure protection triaging structures and identifying values in the area.
The Smokey Lake wildfire, North of Tatla Lake, is estimated to be 6,674 hectares in size.
“We have seen a reduced fire behaviour yesterday (Sept 8) and today due to local smoke and cloudier conditions we were witnessing less fire behaviour than we did over the weekend,” Walbauer said, “We have overnight crews working on this fire to monitor and assess as well utilizing hand ignitions along the machine guard to strengthen our containment line along the South East corner of that fire near the community of Tatla Lake.”
Walbauer said they are also utilizing an equipment strike team to assist in containment objectives and continue to establish indirect line towards Martin Lake and tying into their natural features there.
“We have structure protection South of that fire along Highway 20 and we have a mass water system that has been deployed to support our fire suppression activities for Tatla Lake and surrounding infrastructure,” Walbauer added.
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