Update 8:30 p.m.: Fire crews on the Gustafsen Fire had another good day, says Fire Information Officer Heather Rice
“They had another pretty good day, actually a pretty quiet day,” she says.
Fire crews were able to do a small burn off, she says.
It was “not quite what they were hoping for because of the winds — actually not enough winds if you can believe it,” she says. “You need a little bit of wind to get the fuels going.”
Rice says they will continue to monitor conditions in order to try and conduct another burn off.
Rice says there was no substantial growth on the fire over the day, however it remains at about 15 per cent contained.
With the burn off, Rice says people would have seen helicopters and skimmers on the lakes in the area. Earlier in the day, boaters were asked to stay off Lac la Hache, Watson Lake and Horse Lake in order to allow the skimmers to work.
Overall, the fire remains on the west side of the highway.
Overnight, Rice expects the conditions to remain similar to what they were today, however she does say dry cold front bringing gustier winds is forcasted towards the weekend, bringing the possibility of increased fire activity.
“We will be monitoring that and keeping a close eye on that. We will know more towards the weekend,” she says.
The Gustafsen Fire started on July 6.
Coming into the seventh day on the fire, Rice says they are “being careful now that it’s almost the weekend. People are being reminded to be careful about fatigue and keep safety first.
“We’re not seeing a lot of growth and that’s the main thing. It would be nice to make a bit more of an effort to actually extinguish the fire but we’re still working on that part of it.”
She says, firefighters, as is everyone else, are hanging in there and working hard.
“We’re better than we were yesterday,” says 100 Mile House Mayor Mitch Campsall.
Update 4:10 p.m.: There have been no major developments in fighting the fire today, according to the Fire Information Officer for the Gustafsen Fire, Heather Rice.
“Lots of mop up going on along Highway 97 and I would say the fire again today has not grown substantially, if at all,” says Rice.
“They’re certainly focusing their efforts on the south flank there close to the mill and Norbord worksite and strengthening all the guards on the east and on the west.“
Update 10:20 a.m.: The Gustafsen fire is now 15 per cent contained, says Heather Rice, Fire Information Officer for the Gustafsen Fire.
Original story: “We had another pretty good night, keeping the guards intact and making them even more secure,” says Heather Rice, Information Officer for the Gustafsen fire.
Rice added that power at 108 Mile Ranch should be back already or returning shortly.
“The crews are doing a great job at keeping the perimeter that they’ve established… Because that burn didn’t go off yesterday they will be looking at today, so if you see some increased fire activity later this morning or early this afternoon it will be the burn going as planned yesterday that didn’t quite work out,” she says.
“It is still burning, we do have guards in place but it is still burning. It’s not like the fire is out at all. I think because this fire is so spotty and because there are so many unburned areas within the perimeter, with one increase of sudden gusty wind it could flare up again and cause some concern, that’s why we hesitate to say it’s contained,” she says, adding that she would be checking with “the operations people [to see if they] are comfortable starting to say there is some containment percentage.”
