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July 29: Elephant Hill fire causes evacuation of Clinton

Fire spotting across Bonaparte River
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Smoke is very visible from the Big Bar pullout north of Clinton. Taken July 27. Tara Sprickerhoff photo.

4:45 p.m. update: The Elephant Hill fire has caused the evacuation of Clinton and parts of the surrounding areas.

Related: Village of Clinton now on evacuation order

“Folks in the area are being asked to evacuate to the south as there are very gusty and aggressive winds in the area so the wildfire has spotted across containment lines to the north of the Bonaparte River and is not immediately threatening the town of Clinton, but is in an area where we have recommended that the evacuation orders be changed in order to protect folks in the area,” says Fire Information Officer Claire Allen.

Highway 97 is closed between Loon Lake and 70 Mile, but is open for traffic evacuating southbound out of Clinton.

We will post evacuation orders on our website as they are released.

More to come.

Original story: The Elephant Hill fire has grown to approximately 70,380 hectares from it’s last reported 68,000 hectares.

“This is primarily due to some better mapping as visibility has improved in some parts of the fire, as well as doing some planned ignitions in critical parts of the fire,” says Claire Allen, fire information officer.

Additionally, the fire has seen some aggressive behaviour on the northeastern edges of the fire, past Loon Lake and towards Hihium Lake.

“We were seeing quite a bit of aggressive behaviour several days ago on the western flank, but that has been tempered with our controlled burning as well as south-westerly winds that has pushed that fire back in on itself on the western flank,” says Allen.

“The southwest winds and southeast winds have been assisting that west flank and helping keep it grow [away] from Highway 97 and Clinton and protecting that area, but with that means — with such a large fire — the wind is pushing the fire in that northeast side into new fuels, so we have seen some aggressive fire behaviour and a bit of an expansion on that side.”

While there are 20 km winds expected today with gusts up to 40 km per hour, today is expected to be the windiest for the near future, says Allen.

The objectives on the fire remain largely the same — conduct controlled burns to remove fuel from the fire’s path and expand guard lines in areas crews have not yet been able to reach.

“Our crews have been working really hard to get strong guard lines in and at this time the fire has not crossed the Bonaparte river and that’s the main objective for us right now — hold the fire with the containment lines that we have south of the Bonaparte.”

While the area has been quite smokey - today aerial resources were unable to to take to the air until the afternoon — there are now 19 helicopters assisting with the fire and two fire camps have been established: one in Clinton with approximately 350 people and one in Cache Creek with approximately 150 people.

The southern division of the fire, south of Highway 97 are now in the mop up and patrol stage.

“We are not seeing any active open fire on the ground, but what our crews do is comb through that and make sure there are no remaining hotspots or smoldering ground fires under the root system there.”

The BC Wildfire service has also conducted an infrared heat scan to determine if there are any remaining hotspots in the area.

“Then crews can prioritize those and make sure they are fully extinguished before we declare that section of the fire as fully out.”

There remain no immediate threats to Highway 97 and the Village of Clinton at this time, says Allen.

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