“The key difference is the vegetation,”: Australian Incident Management Team keeping busy in VanJam Fire Zone

Despite the wetter weather, fire crews within the VanJam Fire Zone are keeping close tabs on the Great Beaver Lake wildfire, northeast of Vanderhoof.

It is currently 33 hundred hectares in size and is one of seven blazes of note within the fire zone.

Angela Burford who is with the Australian Incident Management Team based in Vanderhoof told Vista Radio the rain we have seen the last two days can prove beneficial before the weather changes again.

“We do know that there are some active edges on that fire albeit it is not causing us too many problems at the moment. We are doing as much as we possibly can as we have advantages like some swampy ground to the north of it and we are confident it won’t actually reach the rail line, which is to the north of it.”

In addition, Burford and the Australian-based crew are also working on the Greer Creek blaze, south of the community.

It is currently burning at just over 38 hundred hectares in size.

“It’s something we are keeping a very close eye on heading into next week because it is a very large fire, there are hedges and hot spots that could flare up next week, and has the potential to take a run.”

Mother Nature has been kind to the VanJam area over the past few days dropping roughly 20 millimetres of rain.

Burford noted while everyone has been playing for the rain, the damper conditions can also restrict other operations.

“It’s been really helpful to allow the firefighters to take advantage of the cooler conditions and to reinforce our containment strategies whether that be cutting guards, using our machines, or consolidating what we have in place and being able to mop up those hot spots on those larger fires.”

“It does also in some cases hinder our operations in that it can provide difficulties for firefighters to access some of the areas around the fires – it does slow everything down quite a bit but it’s important to know we have had some wins and we are putting some fires out within the zone.”

Burford and the IMT unit from Down Under noted the fires here burn a little differently than they do back home.

“The key difference is the vegetation they are burning in. Our fires back home usually burn in what we call it sort of bushland which does burn quite far but the fires here with the significant duff layer on the ground that we don’t have at home causes a whole range of complexities.”

“We know all too well in Australia what it is like to deal with a horrendous, relentless fire season like this, which we saw only a couple of years ago. It’s a pleasure for us to come over here and give the locals a bit of a rest.”

Overall, there are 432 wildfires burning in BC with 199 in the PG Fire Centre – 8 are of note.