181 fires in Kamloops Fire Centre to date; Bush Creek remains largest in region

The most significant blaze within the Thompson Okanagan continues to be the Bush Creek wildfire, which is currently mapped at 265 hectares.

The fire, which is located approximately 23 kilometres northwest of Chase, was spotted last Wednesday,   and has continued to grow in the days since, BC Wildfire Information Officer Taylor Wallace said.

“Yesterday, we did see quite a bit of growth on it,” Wallace said.

“We had really gusty winds on site about 40 to 60 kilometers per hour and that increased the fire behaviour quite a bit.”

Smoky skies also cleared up in the area, leading to more direct sunlight and increasing the temperatures on-site, raising the fire behaviour to about rank four, or a pretty vigorous surface fire burning in some heavy timber areas.

“It is steep terrain in the area, it is very heavily timbered as well, so we’re keeping quite a bit of heavy timber burning and that heavy timber fuel types as well,” Wallace said.

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The good news, however, is that this fire is moving away from structures and from values and there are no threats in that regard.

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In the Kamloops Fire Centre there’s currently a fire danger rating of generally high with some pockets of moderate and some of extreme danger as well, the latter being in the northern Thompson area and a little bit out in the Lillooet and Lytton area.

So far this season in the Kamloops Fire Center, BC Wildfire has responded to 181 wildfires that have burned 5,225 hectares.

Of those 181 wildfires, 116 are suspected to be lightning-caused, and 57 are suspected to be human-caused with eight undetermined at this time.

“We’re stacking up a little bit differently to the 10-year average,”  Wallace said.

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“The 10-year average is 149 fires at this time this year. We are above that in terms of the number of fires, but we are below in terms of hectares burned. The 10-year average is looking at about 16,718 hectares burned and we are sitting well below that.”

For reference sake, Wallace said the region is faring much better than it did in 2021.

That year, by this time, there had been about 338 fires and 99,828 hectares burned.