The Thompson-Nicola Regional District says 54 homes in Canford and Miller Estates, west of Merritt, are still under an evacuation alert because of the Petit Creek wildfire.
BC Wildfire Service Fire Information Officer Gagan Lidhran says this is the first wildfire of note in the province this fire season. It hasn’t grown since yesterday and is still measured at 100 hectares in size.
“We have 37 BC Wildfire Service personnel onsite, along with two pieces of heavy equipment and two helicopters,” she told NL News. “Heavy equipment is continuing to create ground access for crews as well as developing a guard on sections of the fire perimeter.”
“Our crews are also performing small-scale hand-ignitions to remove some unburned fuel as well as constructing a hand guard on the southwest perimeter of the fire.”
Lidhran says the suspected human caused fire, about 18 kilometres northwest of Merritt, grew to its current size largely because of winds in the area yesterday.
“We have been trying to get out the message to the general public to please be extremely cautious with their fire usage,” Lidhran added.
“We haven’t received significant precipitation within the Kamloops Fire Centre for a little while now. Its likely that these dry conditions will persist over the next week, so that is going to significantly increase wildfire risk.”
TNRD Emergency Program Coordinator Kevin Skrepnek says the boundaries for the evacuation alert have not changed since last night. He told NL News the Petit Creek wildfire is one of several in the area that the TNRD is monitoring.
“We did activate our emergency operations centre last night, in response to both this fire and other fires that popped up yesterday so that we can kind of get some awareness of it, and then ultimately put that evacuation alert out,” he said, noting the EOC will stay active for as long as the evacuation alert is in place.
He is also reminding people to sign up for the Voyent Alert app, which is free and anonymous. The app will automatically notify people in the Thompson and Nicola regions if there are any evacuation alerts or orders because of wildfires, flooding or other emergencies.
A list of properties affected by the Petit Creek fire evacuation alert can be found here.
(Photo: Twitter: Kamscan)
– With files from Victor Kaisar