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B.C. Wildfire

Quiet wildfire season provided opportunity for out-of-province deployments

Oct 8, 2019 | 9:37 AM

KAMLOOPS — The wildfire season has come to a close and unlike the past two years, this year did not burn its way into the history books.

Within the Kamloops Fire Centre there were 199 fires, burning just over 4,100 hectares.

According to Fire Information Officer Kyla Fraser, that’s 7.5 per cent of the amount of hectares burned last year, and only two per cent of what was burned in 2017.

Fraser adds the quieter season allowed crews to help out on out of province fires.

“We certainly still had a lot of work to do,” Fraser said. “We were fortunate that we had a lot of crews for the season, so we were able to help with out-of-province deployments in Alaska, Alberta, Ontario and the Yukon. We also were heavily involved in assisting in the Big Bar landslide incident.”

Despite the predictions of a hot and dry summer, intermittent rain provided the necessary moisture to prevent any major blazes.

“We were all geared up, we were ready for it to be a busy summer again and fortunately we didn’t see that,” Fraser said, “but it was really nice because we were able to help in other areas.”

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