Fort Nelson residents anxiously awaiting call to re-enter; Mayor hoping fire can be contained

There is cautious optimism regarding a pair of wildfires surrounding Fort Nelson.

The Parker Lake Wildfire continues to hold steady at 12,350 hectares while the Patry Creek blaze, which is a holdover from last year is at 74,244 hectares in size.

Northern Rockies Regional Municipalities Mayor, Rob Fraser told Vista Radio that Mother Nature is providing some favourable conditions.

“We got a little bit of rain there overnight and we are seeing cool overcast conditions so they fire crews are out there actively fighting this fire. I am real confident that they are going to at least contain it here in the next couple of days.”

Area residents are anxiously awaiting the go-ahead from the BC Wildfire Service to return home.

Roughly 4,000 people have been evacuated for about two-weeks with 3,300 of them taking shelter in Prince George, Dawson Creek or, Fort St. John.

Fraser says his office remains in constant communication with provincial fire officials on this fluid matter.

“The experts are telling us that 14 days is not unreasonable to expect to stand everybody up. But, we’ve got people on the ground and an excellent permitting process in place to allow people back in – hospitals, clinics, grocery stores to make sure the community because once they make that call we will have a lot of that done already and hopefully we can reduce the amount of time to complete the re-entry.”

“The two fires combined complicate the efforts to return people home. We are waiting for the wildfire service that it is safe for us to return to the community. We have seen some encouraging signs that they told us to be watching for so we are doing some things to exercise around the periphery – some things we can do early by the time we get the call and the time people can re-enter the community.”

He adds ten properties have been impacted by the blaze – four of which have homes on them – three that were destroyed had been occupied.

The remaining six properties had sheds, vehicles or, boats that sustained damage.

Fraser added drones are endangering helicopters being used to fight wildfires. He stated drones can be an excellent tool, but under the circumstances where 20 helicopters are flying around, he says drones are “nothing but hazards.”