The Purdy Lake wildfire, south of Batnuni Lake, is now up 900 hectares in size.
Jessica Mack, a Fire Information Officer with the BC Wildfire Service, confirms that due to windier conditions that fire has been active, but she says it is burning away from the area on evacuation alert.
“It is moving in a more southerly direction and that is going into the Kluskoil Lake Park, and BC Parks has been engaged regarding suppression efforts in there. We have 27 firefighters and 9 pieces of heavy equipment that are working to suppress that fire right now.”
Mack says heavy machinery will continue to establish containment lines, while ground personnel are completing a hose lay.
Residents in the Titetown remain on evacuation alert due to that wildfire.
The fire in the Churn Creek Protected area is now up to 2,655 hectares.
“That was due to some controlled burns we were doing within the fire the other day. Now ground personnel are focusing efforts on patrolling and extinguishing any hot spots along the fire’s edge today, and that status has been updated to being held.”
Mack says the North of Big Stick Lake area fire is also being held and due to better mapping, it is now listed at 72 hectares in size.
She says there are a total of 63 active wildfires within the Cariboo right now.
“43 of those are within the 100 Mile fire zone, 8 within the Chilcotin Fire zone, 6 within the Central Cariboo, and 6 within the Quesnel fire zone.”
An Incident management team has taken over the wildfires burning east of Highway 97 and north of Highway 24, including two of the wildfires of note.
The South of Canim Lake wildfire remained at 1,250 hectares as of Saturday (July 10) morning, but Fire Information Officer Erin Bull expects that figure to go up.
Here, she provides an update on the latest plans for that fire.
“We have 22 firefighters and 13 pieces of heavy equipment working on that fire. Yesterday heavy equipment began putting in a fireguard on the northwest flank of the fire, so they will continue doing that today, with the assistance of the unit crews on the ground.”
An evacuation alert remains in place in the Canim Lake area that also covers Eagle Creek, Hawkins Lake, Ruth Lake, the bulk of Forest Grove, and everything on the pavement on Canim-Hendrix Road.
Bull says the fireguards that are going in are to protect those communities.
The Southwest of Deka Lake wildfire is still at 650 hectares and Bull says that fire is winding down.
“Absolutely, that fire has been winding down over a number of days. There has been no change to the size or the status of that fire in the last two days. We still do have crews on the ground doing mop-up activities, so that means they are essentially cooling any remaining hot spots on the fire.”
Deka Lake, Judson Road, and Sulphurous Lake residents remain on evacuation alert due to that fire.
Files from George Henderson, MyCaribooNow
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