Despite the rainy, wet summer, firefighters in the Northwest Fire Centre have been busy this month, with fires caused by lightning, in the northernmost parts of the province.
According to Casda Thomas, the Fire Information Officer, many Northwest Fire Centre crews, including the Burns Lake Unit Crew have been repositioned to the Cassiar Fire Zone, and are working on wildfires within that zone.
While due to the wet, below seasonal temperatures in several northern areas, including Burns Lake and Houston, BCWS experienced a below average number of fire starts in the Northwest during May and June, with very few hectares burned, July has been different already.
“We had numerous lightning caused wildfires ignited across the northern portion of our Centre. The majority of these fires occurred in full-response areas and we are being successful with initial attack. We currently have 11 fires burning in the centre at various stages of control. Four of these fires are in ‘Modified Response’ areas which means these fires are in remote locations where there are no immediate threats to values or infrastructure and long term operational planning is being conducted,” said Thomas.
She also said that all four Northwest Fire Centre Unit Crews were currently assigned to the Tagish Lake wildfire (R90539), located 47 kms north of Atlin on the BC/Yukon border, however they would begin transitioning off and travelling home over the next few days.
“Initial attack crews from both Burns Lake and Houston have been busy this season with deployments to the Yukon Territory, Cassiar Fire zone and responding to a few local incidents and nuisance fires,” she said.
Currently, there is one Initial Attack crew available in Houston to respond to any fires in the Nadina zone, as well as two response officers based in Burns Lake. The BC Wildfire Service (BCWS) also has additional Initial attack crews and other resources available throughout the fire centre that can be repositioned as required.
“We want to recognize the great work that the crews have done over the last two weeks in the Northwest Fire Centre. We have had excellent success with Initial Attack; our crews have called out 27 wildfires since July 1,” said Thomas.
So far this season, there have been no campfire restrictions.
The fire danger rating for the Burns Lake and Houston area has also remained between “very low danger” to “low danger”. At the time of going to press, there were 18 active fires throughout the province, including one near Lytton. BCWS also announced open burning prohibitions for the Cariboo, Kamloops, Southeast and Coastal Fire Centres for category two and three fires including fireworks and sky lanterns.