The largest collection of restored wooden buildings in Canada is under threat due to B.C.’s wildfires.
The Fort St. James National Historic Site has been closed to the public due to an evacuation alert issued for the entire Fort St. James community due to the Shovel Lake wildfire.
That massive blaze is now more than 68,000 hectares in size.
Fort St. James was founded by Simon Fraser and John Stuart as a North West Company trading post on the east side of Stuart Lake in 1806, and still functioned as a Hudsons Bay Company trading post into the 1950s.
It was resorted and reopened to the public in 1977, and now depicts life as it was in 1896.
“You have a number of very valuable buildings, not necessarily in the economic sense, but certainly in the cultural history of Canada and the development of B.C. sense,” said Parks Canada spokesperson Steve Young.
There are about 14 structures on the 22-square-kilometre site, some of them more than 120 years old.
Young said a team from Jasper National Park visited the site earlier this week to clear potential fire hazards and set up structural protection units.
“They installed 14 sprinkler towers, three roof rigs, some stump mounted sprinklers… and got it all ready to go,” he said.
“Those things have been running pretty much around the clock so far.”
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Young said most of the staff has now self-evacuated from the site due to the evacuation alert, but the site manager and two workers from Jasper stayed to watch over the sprinkler system.
BC Wildfire Service crews and some municipal fire departments, including members from Vancouver, have staged in Vanderhoof and are also working to protect buildings in the community of Fort St. James.
However, Young said defending the historic site will be the responsibility of Parks Canada.
As of Friday, there were 113 firefighters, eight helicopters and 52 pieces of heavy equipment battling the Shovel Lake fire, which is sending heavy smoke into the Fort St. James area.
The structural protection crews are running day and night shifts, with engine tender task forces working overnight.