Firefighters in West Vancouver are battling a two-hectare wildfire southwest of Eagle Lake by Cypress Falls Park.
West Vancouver Fire Rescue crews responded at around 7 a.m. Friday as smoke billowed from within heavily-wooded area.
“Access has been an issue. There is a road that gets us within approximately a kilometre of the area but we had to cut a trail into the area to get access to the fire,” West Vancouver Fire Chief Dave Clark told Global News.
The fire is not currently growing, the fire department tweeted, but trails in the area have been closed as a precaution and people are being asked to stay away.
“It looks like the fire is in a watershed area so there is no immediate danger to homes or businesses,” said Donna Powers, communications director for the District of West Vancouver.
“At this point the fire is being controlled and the growth is minimal at this time, but we’re watching very carefully. Wildfires tend to grow in size in the afternoon.”
Six helicopters, crews and an officer from the BC Wildfire Service joined the West Vancouver Fire Department in dousing the flames. Buckets of water were drawn from Whyte Lake.
Clark said the fire department’s major concern is preserving the water filtration plant attached to Eagle Lake, which supplies a number of properties.
Conditions across the Lower Mainland are extremely dry, with less than 20 millimetres of rain recorded in the area since early July. Clark said those circumstances lead him to believe the fire was human-caused.
– With files from Global News’ Janet Brown and The Canadian Press
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