The BC Wildfire Service is reporting that a controlled burn on the Southwest of Deka Lake wildfire went extremely well yesterday. (Monday)
Fire Information Officer Jessica Mack goes over some of the details…
“Due to the coordination between our fire fighters, aerial support and heavy equipment, that the burn went as planned. Firefighters worked throughout the night to patrol the guards for any potential smokes, just to ensure that they didn’t go past the guard that we have in place.”
Mack says the size of that fire did increase because of the controlled burn from 300 up to an estimated 650 hectares in size.
An Evacuation Order remains in place for 693 properties in the Deka Lake area as the status for that fire is still listed as out of control.
The fire South of Canim Lake, that led to an expanded evacuation alert for the Canim Lake and the Forest Grove area yesterday, is still said to be growing upslope away from the communities.
” Yesterday, we did have the heavy lift aircraft in there putting water on the fire along with air tankers that were putting in retardant lines in between the community and where the fire is.”
It is now estimated at 582 hectares, which is actually down from 700, as they were able to better map that fire using an aerial assessment.
The wildfire northeast of Si Lake, that has led to an Evacuation Alert for 18 properties, is now listed as a fire of note.
” It’s estimated to be 27 hectares in size. However, we did have some good news on that one yesterday and the status has been changed to being held. We have 17 firefighters that are working to continue to put some water onto that wildfire, and heavy equipment has established a a guard around 100 percent of the fire.”
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The Churn Creek wildfire remains at 1,287 hectares in size and a controlled burn was also done on a portion of that fire.
“We had successful ignitions on the southern and western flanks of the fire, and so we were able to get some containment lines in there and hand ignitions will occur on the northern flank of the fire today (Tuesday), if conditions are suitable.”
There are two properties under an Evacuation Alert issued by the Thompson-Nicola Regional District because of that fire.
And the big news on the North of Big Stick Lake wildfire, that has led to an Evacuation Alert for 27 parcels of land, is that it is now being held.
It remains at 85 hectares in size.
Mack says there are 54 active fires burning within the Cariboo Fire Centre, up from 49 on Monday, with the vast majority of them in the South Cariboo.
“44 of those are within the 100 Mile fire zone, 3 are in the Chilcotin fire zone, 4 are within the Central Cariboo fire zone, and 5 are within the Quesnel fire zone.”
The closest fire to Quesnel is actually in the Prince George Fire zone.
It is near Yardley Lake about 38 kilometres from the Quesnel Airport.
That fire started yesterday (Monday) and it very small and is listed as under control.
The closest fire to Williams Lake right now is about 55 to 60 kilometres to the northwest.
