86.5% of all lighting strikes recorded in BC over the last 48 hours have occurred in the Prince George Fire Centre.
Of the 6,366 strikes tallied – 5,509 found their way to our area Saturday and Sunday.
Fire Information Officer, Pedro Roldan-Delgado told MyPGNow.com while this led to five new fire starts, mostly located in heavily forested areas, the weekend rain did help with suppression efforts.
“The temperature dropping down helps immensely with the fire activity as well as any precipitation landed. The amount of precipitation will vary because not all of the zones got the same amount.”
“Some zones got 40 mils of rain while sections of the same zone might have only gotten 10 – it varies drastically throughout the fire centre and that any amount of rain calmed down the fire activity and helped crews get some more work done.”
The Prince George Fire Centre has seen 105 blazes this year – more than double than the Kamloops Fire Centre (53).
Over 323-thousand hectares have burned in our area so far.
Of the newer fires burning, among them is the Elliott Lake blaze three hours south of PG, near 100 Mile House, which is seven hectares in size.
Fire officials are also keeping an eye on a 0.2 hectare blaze in the Longworth area along Highway 16 east of city limits.
Both blazes are currently being held.
Just down the road (Highway 16) a 1.5 hectare blaze is burning out of control in Torpy River. It is believed to be lightning-caused according to fire officials.
A near 16-hundred-hectare wildfire east of Tommy Lakes in the Peace Region remains out of control and is also suspected to be caused by lightning.
The Peace area is dealing with the East Sikanni Chief fire, which is 0.5 hectares and is out of control.
Province-wide, 94 active wildfires remain in BC – 59 blazes have been declared out in the last 24 hours.
Something going on in the Prince George area you think people should know about?
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