Wildfire south of Princeton getting international support

BC Wildfire is getting support from overseas in dealing with the Calcite Creek wildfire, south of Princeton.

“There is an Australian incident management team that will be moving in to take over operations on that fire over the next few days,” Taylor Shantz, with the BC Wildfire Centre said Monday.

Shantz said that Australian wildfire fighters across the province have started to move into both incident management and some unit crew teams.

“It is getting to that point in the season where we do start to rely on our partnerships with those external groups to be able to provide a little bit of that support,” she said.

The Calcite Creek fire, which was sparked July 18,  today has a team of 58 firefighters, two helicopters and air tankers responding.

3:05 Okanagan Responders Gratitude Event in West Kelowna

At last track, Shantz said the fire was mapped at 4,100 hectares, though that number is expected to grow.

“There has been low visibility on the fires, we weren’t able to get an exact track yesterday.”

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The firefighting effort on Monday, Aug. 5, will be creating a fire break to the southwest of the fire, with water delivery and chainsaw work.

“Crews will also continue to establish fuel frees and helipads from Pasayten River to the end of machine guard in the southwest corner,” BC Wildfire said.

“Danger Tree Assessing  and Danger Tree Falling   will be ongoing again today in order to support crews with fuel frees, and heli-pad construction.”

There are 16 properties near the fire on evacuation order from the intersection of Highway 3, south to Pasayten Forest Service Road. An evacuation alert for Eastgate and Placer Creek.

The wildfire service will also be implementing structure protection support for area residents with FireSmart, sprinkler systems, and installing structure protection.

The Regional District Emergency Operations Centre EOC can be contacted at. 250-490-4225 The Emergency Operations Centre; when active, will be open 8:30am to 4:30 p.m. Monday to Friday.