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Aug. 18: “Everything is going well,” on fires near Canim Lake, Hawkins Lake

Winds expected today and into weekend
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Smoke visible on the fire south of Canim Lake today. Martina Dopf photo.

“Everything is going well,” on the fires near Canim Lake and Hawkins Lake, says Fire Information Officer Alison Martin.

Yesterday, fire C4703, south of Canim Lake, saw some activity.

“There was a little bit of smoke from there yesterday but it didn’t threaten the guard at all,” says Martin.

Currently, crews are allowing the fire to burn to the guard.

“One of the things that we do is if it’s not burning really quickly to the guard, if its just backing down the back of the fire rather than the front of it, we let it burn so there is a non flammable shield between the guard that we’ve put in place and the fire itself. If that is monitored it is less likely to jump the guard later on.”

Crews on fire 41707, south of Hawkins Lake, have almost got a guard completed around the perimeter of that fire, with the aim of completing it today, says Martin.

“It’s all looking very good out there actually”

She helicopter and bucketing support is available for crews to call if necessary.

A new fire is on the BC Wildfire map, 0.5 km south of Buffalo Creek. According to the website the fire, labelled C41778, is listed at 0.01 hectares and is suspected to be caused by lightning.

The Free Press is waiting to hear back from the BC Wildfire Service for more on this fire.

The Cariboo Fire Centre put out a release today saying that a cold front bringing strong and variable winds, with gusts up to 60 km/h is expected to move through the fire centre today and into the weekend and those winds may cause existing fires to grow substantially, or cause new fires to burn aggressively and spread quickly.

There is a risk of lightning, according to the release and, while rain is expected, it will not be substantial. Winds are expected to change from prevailing southwesterly winds to westerly and northwesterly winds.

The release says that firefighting crews have spent the last few days preparing for the expected conditions, but that containment efforts may be challenged.