The second-largest wildfire in BC’s history is nearly 311-thousand hectares.
Due to a strong wind event yesterday (Tuesday), the Donnie Creek wildfire southeast of Fort Nelson saw substantial growth.
Only the Plateau wildfire in the Cariboo back in 2017 was bigger at 545 thousand hectares.
Fire Information Officer, Julia Caranci told Vista Radio while crews will be dealing with less wind, the upcoming weather forecast is set to bring more challenges.
“The good news is that we will have significantly less wind, so very light winds over the next several days but on the other hand, a warming and drying trend to above seasonal conditions at least until this weekend when we are not exactly sure whether there will be a significant change in the weather or not.”
With Mother Nature not cooperating at the moment, fire personnel are once again being forced to change their plan of attack.
“Our objective moving forward is that we are going to use direct parallel and indirect strategies to minimize fire growth on the south and west flanks of the fire so that is one of our objectives. We are using a modified response on the north and east sides of the fire with structure protection as the primary mitigation strategy.”
“Advanced forward planning is ongoing to identify potential future impacts to structures and industries based on our growth projections.”
Caranci adds crews are also keeping a close eye on the Holman Creek wildfire, which is also exhibiting some extreme behaviour.
She says they are anticipating Holman Creek is expected to merge with the Donnie Creek blaze sometime today (Wednesday).
“It exhibited extreme fire behaviour due to those strong winds and pushed it to the northeast. So, we are anticipating the very real possibility that fire and the Donnie Creek could join together.”
12 helicopters, 25 pieces of heavy equipment, and 150 wildfire personnel are located in the Donnie Creek Complex.
(With Files from Brendan Pawliw-MyPGNow)