Fires around Williams Lake have grown but not into the city

Unlike other parts of the Cariboo the wildfires are growing in the Williams Lake area.

“Updating the 150 Mile fire, the Wildwood fire and the Fox Creek fire,” says Noelle Kekula, Fire Information Officer for the South Cariboo. “On Saturday’s wind events, those three fires merged and now we are managing them as one fire. It is now approximately 13,000 hectares in size.”

Kekula says, in all her years, she hasn’t seen anything like it.

“Not in my career and it’s not only that one fire. In addition to that, the White Lake fire is approximately 8,000 hectares after that one jumped the Fraser on Saturday as well. So we’ve got an 8,000 hectare fire and a 13,000 hectare fire all in and around Williams Lake so this is, in my time of doing this, this is all unprecedented to me.”

Kekula says they are hoping to get some new control lines in today.

She says they are looking at doing some burning in between the perimeters and the control lines, adding that it wouldn’t hurt if they could get some rain and higher humidities.

The BC Wildfire Service’s Chief Information Officer Kevin Skrepnek put it this way: “We’ve got fire in every direction right now but we’ve seen no fire enter the city itself.”