Cooler weather welcome relief for busy B.C. firefighters

VANCOUVER – Cooler conditions Sunday were a welcome relief to firefighters battling wildfires and heavy smoke in B.C.

There were 232 wildfires burning in B.C. Sunday afternoon and the blazes have destroyed 305,500 hectares.

"The weather has cooled down quite a bit," said provincial fire information officer Gwen Eamer. "We’re looking at calmer conditions, cooler conditions and higher humidity."

"So that translates into less active fire behaviour although these fires are still burning."

Eamer notes that the number of fires is down from a peak of more than 400 fire several weeks ago.

The biggest wildfire in the province is the Meldrum Creek complex of fires west of Williams Lake, burning more than 47,000 hectares.

"Crews are making good progress," she said the Meldrum fire. "The number of fires in the complex are 90-95 per cent contained. (Some are) 100 per cent contained. We do have some that are uncontained, but we’re making good progress."

She said 490 firefighters and 570 total personnel are battling the Meldrum fires.

The Binta Lake fire, south of Burns Lake, has burned more than 38,000 hectares.

"It’s about 20 per cent contained," said Eamer. "We have about 285 firefighters on it and we’ve got almost 100 pieces of heavy equipment working on it."

Other fires of note still burning include the Pelican complex fire, north of Nazko and west of Quesnel, (35,400 hectares) and Bull Canyon, west of Alexis Creek (33,000 hectares).

"There are no new significant new fires," said Eamer.

Air quality advisories remained in effect for Williams Lake, Prince George and Vanderhoof.

However, the cooler weather and moisture is helping dissipate some of the smoke, creating better conditions for firefighters and flying.

"The cooler conditions and the rain that we’ve seen will help to wash some of the particulate out of the air," said Eamer. "And the cooler conditions will help to relieve some of the active fire behaviour that we had seen that was kicking up so much smoke. So we won’t see so much smoke being produced."