9:30 p.m. update: “A pretty good day today. Late this afternoon they conducted some burns east and south of Clinton and those are actually going on as we speak. Our south flanks continue to do well today as well. The crews will work again overnight doing some hand ignitions and continuing to enhance our guards south and east flanks,” says Fire Information Officer for the Elephant Hill fire Heather Rice.
There was probably still too much fire activity on the northeast flank to get people in there directly but overnight they will assess the area to see if they can get some people to work in there, says Rice.
“I know that the terrain in there is starting to get a little tricky so they might be doing some additional plans of putting guards a little bit further ahead fire and then bringing the fire to them under controlled conditions.”
The fire has not crossed Highway 1 or 99 and is holding nicely in those areas, she says.
“In those areas, because of the terrain and proximity to other infrastructure, most of the burning in those areas will be conducted at night with hand ignitions.”
Original story: “We did see a little bit more aggressive and volatile fire behaviour in the northeast part of the fire about evening last night,” says Fire Information Officer for the Elephant Hill fire Heather Rice.
The southeast and southwest are holding well, says Rice.
Because the burn near Clinton yesterday didn’t go as well as planned, they’re hoping to do some more controlled burning there to strengthen the fire guard, says Rice.
Related: Aug. 5: Elephant Hill fire did not cross Highway 99 or Highway 1
Plans are similar today as yesterday and hold the lines with 24 hours efforts, she says.
Fire fighters from the northeast United States have joined the effort bringing the current number of firefighters to 488.
“Sometimes it goes up a lot for one day because they’re overlapping with other guys and then other guys might time out tomorrow so it might go down again a bit.