Monstrous — that’s how a local fire chief described the Two Mile Road wildfire that’s burning near Sicamous in B.C.’s Interior.
However, Brett Ogino of the Sicamous Fire Department added that the 800-hectare blaze didn’t have any major overnight activity, even though winds gusted through the region on Wednesday.
“Our (fire) guards held overnight,” Ogino told Global News. “But we still have quite a large fire.”
He continued, saying “it is continuing to push away from the community but it’s quite a monstrous fire at 800 hectares, and it is also trying to push south a little bit, but very slowly.”
Ogino, who called the out-of-control blaze a creeping ground fire, said crews are doing structure protection, reinforcing existing structures and building more guards.
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He said the objective is to “keep it out of the Sicamous Creek area and from crossing Sicamous Creek. That opens up a whole new area of challenges for us.”
The fire is located around two kilometres south of Sicamous. An evacuation order is in place for the fire, along with two evacuation alerts that flank the order.
Ogino said zero structures have been lost to date, “and I can’t say that we’re winning the wildfire side of it, but we’re winning the structure side of it.”
According to the BC Wildfire Service, 33 firefighters and two helicopters, plus personnel from the Sicamous and Swansea Fire Departments, are battling the blaze.
The fire chief also issued a reminder for boaters to stay off nearby Mara Lake to prevent possible conflicts with aerial crews.
“We’ve had some challenges,” said Ogino. “I watched a boat driving down the lake while a helicopter was trying to bucket (water).
“That floors me that they would think that’s OK. It’s not. It’s really dangerous for them and they should not have been on the lake at all.”
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