“Not a lot of significant growth.”
That’s how BC Wildfire described the Bush Creek East wildfire on Saturday as officials held a news conference on Saturday afternoon. The information session is also available online.
However, the fire’s size did grow slightly to 43,000 hectares, up from just over 41,000 hectares on Friday. The growth was attributed to more accurate mapping.
“We know that we’re in a warm, drying trend,” said Mike McCulley with BC Wildfire.
“And we also know that British Columbia is in severe drought. And so any rain that we had a week ago or so, those effects are wearing off very quickly.”
McCulley continued, saying “the big, heavy fuels have always remained dry and were never wetted by any of the rain we had, so the volatility is still there and you can see that in the fire behaviour we’ve had over the last few days.”
He said residents will likely see more smoke rising from the wildfire, but that’s the result of pockets of unburnt fuel within the fire’s perimeter now burning off.
“That’s not terrible news,” McCulley said. “It helps to reduce any risks if we see any winds or change in the weather that’s not favourable for us.”
BC Wildfire said its crews will also be performing hand ignitions to firm up fire-guard lines.
The upcoming weather forecast appears to be a mixed bag, with rain and wind next week.
“We know that we’re not going to see big winds in the next few days. That’s great news for us,” said McCulley.
“But we are looking at some potential change around Tuesday, where a system is going to come through – probably not with the kind of winds we saw a week or so ago, but certainly a little more chance of southwest winds blowing through to Tuesday.”
Following that, he said, there’s precipitation in the forecast that’s becoming a little more certain.
“We’re just not sure on the timing of that,” said McCulley. “For us, we start to think about the fire we may have, not the fire we currently have.”
On Friday, officials announced that the blaze destroyed at least 131 structures within the Columbia Shuswap Regional District.
On Saturday, Larry Read with the Skwlāx te Secwepemcúl̓ecw (Little Shuswap Lake Band) said 85 structures were lost with another 13 being partially damaged and that 139 structures had no damage.
CSRD officials said utility crews are working to restore power, including hundreds of broke poles, within the affected areas.
“They’re tired just like everybody else,” said Emergency Operations Centre director Derek Sutherland, “but they’re not stopping until it’s done.”
“This is the time when people really need to be patient and understand how dangerous it can be in an area post-wildfire,” said McCulley.
“It’s not an easy orchestra to pull off, this notion of recovery and getting people home.”
He continued, saying “our main goal is to get a handle on the fire and get people home. It’s just a really challenging climate to do that in. There’s so many hazards out there.”
The Bush Creek East fire has spawned many evacuation orders and alerts, including a new order issued on Saturday for Skimikin.
McCulley noted that “we’re seeing fire burn differently than we normally do. We’re seeing it burn deep into the ground, we’re seeing trees compromised in ways they normally aren’t.
“And what that means is we have to proceed with extreme caution.”
In related news, three new fires are burning northeast of the Bush Creek East blaze.
The three are located just north of the top portion of Shuswap Lake’s Seymour Arm and were all sized at one hectare or less.
BC Wildfire says the three are in the Humamilt Lake area, and that attack crews were sent to the sites.
More to come…