UPDATE:
The Sabiston Creek fire burning near Savona has been listed as being 200 hectares in size, B.C. Wildfire said Thursday afternoon.
According to BCWS, controlled burns will take place to remove unburned fuels.
“This useful tactic only happens when conditions are ideal and allows us to create a burn out in a controlled supervised environment, rather than having these pockets ignite in an uncontrolled environment,” BCWS said in a tweet.
ORIGINAL STORY:
The wildfire burning west of Kamloops was still deemed to be out of control on Thursday morning, though it still listed at 100 hectares, the same total it was on Wednesday night after roaring to life earlier in the day.
Called the Sabiston Creek fire, the blaze mainly involves scrub land and grasses. The fire is located near Savona, which is approximately 40 kilometres west of Kamloops, and is just metres from the nearby Trans-Canada Highway.
The B.C. Wildfire Service said 33 personnel will be on site for Thursday, putting down handguards on the east flank to increase containment.
“It’s sage and grass,” said B.C. Wildfire information officer Marla Catherall. “When you have those fine fuels, when the wind picks up, they burn really quickly and really hot.
“But they also burn out pretty quickly as well.”
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On Wednesday, part of the Trans-Canada Highway near Savona was closed because of the fire. The highway has since been reopened.
Catherall said BCWS was waiting for more accurate mapping from ground crews to get an exact size of the blaze, adding the fire responded well to suppression efforts on Wednesday.
The fire is believed to be human caused, though an investigation will soon be launched.
There are a handful of other fires in the Thompson-Okanagan, but all are small and believed to be under control.
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North of Salmon Arm, the South Shuswap Lake fire is under control. The fire, believed to be human caused, grew to just 0.8 of a hectare in size.
Approximately 44 km east of Kamloops, the Martin Prairie spot fire is considered being held. It’s listed as being smaller than 10 metres by 10 metres in size.
Around 24 km east of Armstrong is the Bobby Burns Road fire. That fire grew to just 0.8 of a hectare in size and is also considered under control. Twenty personnel were expected to be on site on Thursday.
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And, lastly, the Stump Lake fire – located halfway between Kamloops and Merritt along Highway 5A, is under control. The fire was estimated at 1.60 hectares in size.