On June 27, the province updated its drought map. And while Fort Nelson has dropped from level four to level three, the East Peace (Dawson Creek and Fort St. John area) has dropped from a level five—the highest level in the province—to a level four, and the North Peace (west of Fort St. John) has fallen from a level four to a level three, the South Peace—where Tumbler Ridge is located—stubbornly remains at level four drought conditions.
This is in stark contrast to most of the province, which is at drought level two or below.
At drought level two, adverse affects to socio-economic or ecosystem values are “unlikely”, while at level four, they are likely.
Outside of the Northeast, only the Bulkley Lakes area and the Upper Fraser West area (west of Prince George) are at level three.
The water monitoring station on Flatbed Creek is currently registering a flow of 1.62 cubic metres per second.
Normally, it’s moving 13.19 m3/s, meaning it is only experiencing about 12 percent of its normal flow.
Meanwhile, the Murray River is at 20.1 m3/s, down from its average flow at this time of year of 58.45 m3/s, or only 34 percent of what it is typically moving.
However, the rains are helping control wildfires. Outside of holdover fires from last year, there is only one new fire south of the Peace River and north of Prince George on the wildfire map. That’s the Cameron Lake fire, near Hudson’s Hope, which started back in May and is now considered under control. There have been about 14 other fires in this area since the start of the year, but those are all now considered out.
Province wide, there are 91 fires currently burning, none of them considered fires of note.
Above Photo: …and rain will make the flowers grow. Raindrops from a recent rainfall collect on the French Lilac bush in our backyard.
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.
