July 18: There have been no changes to the information about any of the fires in the last 24 hours.
BC Wildfire service has revised their estimate of the size of the Tentfire Creek Fire, and is now listed as 2,386.5 ha.
The fire blew up on Wednesday, and continued to grow on Thursday.
And, while the Saturday afternoon update still had the fire listed at 1700 ha, that number has been revised to 2,386.5 ha as of Saturday evening.
The fire has not actually experienced much growth on Friday and Saturday, as cool weather and rain has done much to restrict the growth of the fire.
Part of the new growth comes from a change in the way the fire is being mapped.
Last week, the fire threw off sparks into two nearby areas, creating three distinct fires in the same general area.
But as of Saturday, the fire is being treated as a single area, so the area between the blazes has been added, even if the fire is not actively burning at the moment.
With the forecast for the next few days cooler and wetter, firefighters are hoping that they’ll be able to capitalize on the rain and cool weather.
For the last week, BC Wildfire Service members have been cooling their heels, waiting for favourable weather to do a prescribed burn on the Tentfire Creek fire. We are still waiting to find out if they have managed to do that, or if the rain has put a kibosh on plans yet again.
For much of the last two weeks, crews have been building guards and getting set for a prescribed burn between the fire and the fire guards. According to the Fire of Note page for the fire, everything is in place for the burns, but they’re still waiting on the weather.
The goal of a prescribed burn is to light controlled fires between the main body of the fire and the containment lines to eliminate the fuel in a controlled way. “This decreases the chance of the fire burning up to the containment line in an uncontrolled way and crossing or spotting over the containment line,” says B.C. Wildfire.
Heavy equipment is being used to shore up the existing fire guards, but some of the resources have been pulled to fight fires elsewhere in the province, as we crossed the 1000 wildfire on the year mark on July 13.
The ten year average for Wildfires is 1352, while the most fires we’ve had in the province in the last decade is 2117, in 2018. Currently, more than 300 fires are burning across the province.
There are now eight pieces of heavy equipment—down from 13 earlier this week—and 11 firefighters on the fire, with one helicopter providing support.
That fire, plus a second fire at Hook Creek, just west of Kinuseo Falls has forced the closure of Monkman Provincial Park to the public for safety reasons. Hiking trails accessed off the Monkman Falls Road remain closed as well.
The Hook Creek fire has grown to 203 ha, and is only about 1 km west of one of the town’s most popular tourism destinations, but has mostly been stable for the last week.
A third, 10 ha fire is burning near Boulder Lake, but is listed as “being held.”
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.
