Crews battling the Bush Creek East wildfire in the Shuswap region are hoping for rain, as wind is expected to hit the blaze this evening.

Due to hot and dry conditions for the last week, wildfire activity on the Bush Creek East blaze has increased, however, BCWS Information Officer Mike McCulley says there hasn’t been any growth.

“We’re approaching 300 ground crew now on this fire, we added some South African contingent and some local community firefighters engaged with our operation. We also still have around 80 pieces of heavy equipment working on this fire,” said McCulley.

“The fire size actually went down a little bit today to just under 43-thousand hectares; that doesn’t mean the fire shrank, it’s just the challenge of mapping this fire with a large, long, windy, and broken perimeter.”

With that said, increased fire activity is expected to pick up Tuesday night due to a front passing through the region, bringing in south and southwesterly winds.

“We probably are already starting to see winds aloft on the fire already, we have seen an increase in fire activity on certain flanks of the fire, but no growth, no big movement outside the containment lines that we have in place.”

The wildfire service is preparing by having crews work closer to “high-value communities.”

“Working on lines that are well anchored in, to allow for safe egress out of these areas if fire behavior was to pick up significantly. It also allows us to be closest to the values that we are most apt to protect, those being the life and property of British Columbians and of course the life of our first responders,” said McCulley.

“We don’t anticipate big things like we saw a week ago or beyond but certainly when it is windy, we will see an increase in fire behavior.”

Meanwhile, McCulley says they are prioritizing active areas of the blaze in the Shuswap, including near Sorrento.

“We have some active fire around Sorrento, this has been challenging because it has been very visible to the community, so that is always a bit disconcerting for citizens to see, especially when it is so close to town.”
Also of priority, as McCulley says are a few pockets near Lee Creek and Scotch Creek and near the edge of the flank around Magna Bay – headed towards Anglemont.

However, McCulley says that’s not the only area where crews are, noting crews are consolidated above specific communities where there are areas of high concentration of life and property.

“Our operational staff can move people around depending on what the conditions dictate, so if for example, some local winds came up and another particular part of the fire or a different line or a different flank had some increased activity, we would certainly move our crews around accordingly.”

McCulley says fire suppression efforts tonight – will be key in making good headway on the Bush Creek East blaze into Wednesday and Thursday.

The next two days are calling for cooler temperatures, higher humidity, and less wind.