The BC Wildfire Service says its focusing its attention on the southern portions of the Bush Creek East fire near Sorrento and the Turtle Valley area.

It comes as Information Officer Mike McCulley says they have been seeing some growth of the fire in the Sorrento area at the top of the mountain.

“The fire was quite active at higher elevations, simply because the cooler air is trapped lower in the valley. Up at the top of the hill and up slope is a little bit warmer and drier so when you mix that in with an open fuel type and some slash, on a rocky knob, you certainly have an active fire.”

However, McCulley says crews are managing to keep it mostly in-check.

“Two large heavy bucket ships have been bucketing on this flank of the fire for the better part of a week now, running full days, continuing to cool and slow that down.”

McCulley says they did see the fire start to go down the hill, prompting the Columbia Shuswap Regional District to issue an evacuation alert to 14 properties in the Sorrento area.

“We will continue to wrap this up, we added some unit crews, that is a 20 person BC Wildfire Service crews down to work on this line and continue to hold the fire where it is and things are looking okay for now because the winds have subsided in this area.

Over 300 personnel are actively battling the Bush Creek East wildfire, with McCulley saying they are expecting cooler temperatures to help with the fight into Thursday.