No new wildfires in P.G. area

As of Sunday at about noon there were no new forest fires to report in the Prince George Fire Centre, according to Doug Donaldson, Minister of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development, who met with media in the city.

“There are approximately 500 fires still burning across B.C. and 18 of those are fires of note, which is considerably less than a week ago,” he said.

“The fires across the northwest centre and the Prince George centre are looking better. We’ve had a bit of rain and rain doesn’t put fires out – it’s the crews on the ground that actually put the fires out – but rain helps because it allows them to take a more aggressive attack on fires.”

Donaldson said they haven’t turned a corner yet but some of the major fires of concern are definitely more under control at this time and as most evacuation orders are not rescinded, evacuation orders have shrunk.

“The Shovel Lake wildfire is contained at this point and fire lines held up against a big wind on Friday,” Donaldson said. “Wind is often not a friend to fire crews – it was up to 70 km/h on Friday – but the line held.”

They are looking at shrinking the evacuation orders in that area, he added.

The cause of the Shovel Lake wildfire is still under investigation, but it was not caused by lightning.

“We will be continuing our investigation on how that fire got started,” Donaldson said.

“There are still some major concerns around the fires south of Burns Lake, especially the Verdun fire.”

There are between 300 and 400 people in the fire crew that is currently battling that blaze. Although there’s been some precipitation in other parts of the province there still hasn’t been any in that area, he added.

“So that makes it more difficult for our crews to reinforce containment lines,” Donaldson said. “So far structural damage has been limited and we’re very happy about how our people have been able to get containment on that fire. With the big winds on Friday the fire is burning into some areas that had a lot of mountain pine beetle kill – very dry wood – steep slopes, places where it hadn’t been logged and so those kinds of conditions present challenges but overall with the cooler temperatures the fire behaviour becomes less aggressive.”

In the coming weeks the long-term forecast says there will be more dry, hot weather, which is not ideal for this fire season.

“People still need to be vigilant,” Donaldson said. “This is a huge fire season and in terms of the numbers of hectares burned, it’s the largest on record in B.C.”

The numbers have reached 1,303,479 hectares since April 1 and as of Sept. 1.

There have been 2026 fires in B.C. and 442 of those are in the Prince George Fire Centre.

“I want to commend B.C. Wildfire service staff, the contractors and the volunteers because their number one priority is keeping people safe and keeping themselves safe and we haven’t lost one life directly as a result of the fires in this season or last,” Donaldson said.

“And I think that’s a tremendous tribute to the success of what our crews have been doing out there.”