While all eyes have been on the province’s southeast, the Prince George Fire Centre has been quietly winning the fight against wildfires.
“We had 12 new wildfires in the last week and we called out 17 of them, and have changed the status of several of our wildfires to ‘being held’ or ‘under control.'” Davin Richmond, a Fire Information Officer, told My PG Now.
He said some fires saw growth during the warmer weather seen early in the week, but rain on Wednesday (August 23) helped across the region.
Temperatures are expected to spring back to the near-30-degree mark from Sunday to Tuesday this weekend, which Richmond said is something the Fire Centre is “aware of.”
“It depends on the level of fog and smoke, how high those temperatures actually get up to on the ground,” he said. “We have resources held back for initial attack priority if we do get any new fires.”
Richmond said two unit crews, an incident management team, “a few” initial attack crews, and “various single resources” have been sent to Kelowna to aid in their fight.
There are currently 131 fires burning in the Prince George Fire Centre, which is by far the most of any fire centre in the province.
1,339,199 hectares have burned in the Prince George Fire Centre so far this year, accounting for most of the 1,761,322 hectares burned across the province.