Above photo: Michelle, enjoying an apple on top of the ridge at Holzworth Meadows on a near-perfect day earlier this month, before the smoke arrived.
On July 23, a new fire was discovered on the slopes of Cowmoose Mountain. While it quickly grew to 100 ha, rain and cooler weather knocked it back, and, though it has since grown to 116.6 ha, the fire is being held, according to the BC Wildfire Service.
The fire was probably caused by lightning, as was a one hectare fire discovered July 22 deep in the heart of Monkman Provincial Park. That fire is also considered as being held.
A small fire west of the Murray River, across from Teepee Falls that was discovered July 27 was declared out the next day. That fire never grew past .01 ha, or about ten square metres.
Finally, a similar small fire, never amounting to more than .01 ha, found about 12 km southeast of town along Highway 52 was discovered and declared out on the same day, July 23.
After last year’s fire season, Tumbler Ridge has seen very little fire activity this year. This is in marked contrast to elsewhere in the province and in the country.
As we were going to press, there were 370 fires burning across the province, 48 out of control and six qualifying as wildfires of note, all of which are in the southern half of the province.
There were also 20 evacuation orders and 29 alerts in place.
Of the 1046 total wildfires this year, 689, or 66 percent, were caused by lighting. So far 867,931 ha have burned. This is well behind last year’s record 2,842,275 ha, but only 2000 ha behind 2021’s 869,300 ha, putting 2024 on track to be the second worst fire year since 2018.
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.
