The BC Wildfire Service is defending a controlled burn in the North Shuswap fire zone last week that it says saved hundreds of homes.
Firefighters made the call to conduct a planned ignition on Thursday related to the Lower East Adams Lake wildfire, with the aim of preventing it spreading to populated areas.
On Friday, the fire merged with the Bush Creek East wildfire, and the resulting combined blaze rushed into the communities of Squilax, Scotch Creek and Celista, destroying an unknown number of homes, and crossed Highway 1 to the southeast, potentially threatening the communities of Chase and Sorrento.
The purpose of a controlled burn is to set a defensible line and then burn off unburned vegetation and other flammable materials between the line and a wildfire, starving it of fuel.
BC Wildfire Service director of provincial operations Cliff Chapman said Thursday’s burn accomplished that goal, but that winds associated with the forecast cold front helped the fire go on a 22-kilometre run that circumvented their back-burn.
With winds of 40 to 50 km/h forecast, removing as much fuel as possible was critical, he said.
“I want to be perfectly clear that planned ignition saved hundreds of homes and properties along the north Shuswap,” Chapman said.
“Unfortunately, with the wind that we knew was forecast and it was coming, that fire went above the control line that we burned off from and then swept back into the communities in the North Shuswap.”
The controlled burn was also unrelated to the two fires merging, Chapman said, explaining that winds from the cold front pushed the two together before they burned south towards Highway 1.
“I think it’s important to say that the ignition did not grow, the fire that grew was the Bush Creek East fire where no ignitions did occur that was burning as a separate fire on the other side of Adams Lake,” added BC Wildfire Service fire information officer Forrest Towers.
Monday’s statement from the wildfire service came as rumours that the controlled burn had backfired swirled on social media in the North Shuswap.
Some residents in the area remain convinced it was poorly timed.
Meadow Creek farm owner Mary Ghaffari told Global News ash began to rain on her home after the planned ignition.
“The wind started getting out of control an hour or two later, and the smoke started coming into our valley, so we thought, well, this controlled burn doesn’t look very controlled anymore,” she said.
“The first night after the burn, it came down our valley, it burned the valley, but it didn’t stop there. It went to Celista which was not even on alert.”
Ghaffari said there was little communication that the burn was happening. She said there are still fires in the area, and that residents feel abandoned.
Kira Hoffman, a fire ecologist with the University of British Columbia, said controlled burns are typically conducted very carefully and using experienced personnel and the best information available at the time.
“There’s always a risk with using fire, you can’t eliminate risk completely, but people have a lot of experience using fire, they’re watching the weather very carefully,” she said.
“You also have to consider the risk of not using fire. You want to be cleaning up that fuel that’s between homes and the actual fire front, and it is the quickest and most effective way to do so.”
The BC Wildfire Service says it will conduct a detailed evaluation of the burn once it has the resources available.
In the meantime, crews remain focused on fighting the Bush Creek East fire, which has grown to more than 41,000 hectares in size and is responsible for numerous evacuation orders and alerts around Little Shuswap Lake and the Shuswap Arm of Shuswap Lake.
Comments