Contributed/Miranda de Pfyffer

By Amandalina Letterio

Wildfire Watch

Knutsford residents feeling nervous about suspicious fire after close call Tuesday night

Jul 14, 2021 | 5:27 PM

KAMLOOPS — Kamloops RCMP are investigating five suspicious fires in Knutsford last night.

Emergency crews were called to fires at both the 3.5-kilometre mark and the 10-kilometre mark of Goose Lake Road — all suspected to be human caused.

At around 11 p.m. on Tuesday (July 13), Knutsford resident Miranda de Pfyffer was woken up by bright orange lights, and when she looked out the window, she saw flames.

“The fire started on the bottom of the driveway and worked its way up into our yard. My husband said, ‘get up we need to go,’ and we just grabbed our children,” de Pfyffer told CFJC Today.

Within moments, nearby neighbours and strangers gathered to stop the blaze from hitting her home.

Two and Out

PETERS: Whether building up or tearing down, Kamloops is what you make it

13h ago

Sound Off

SOUND OFF: How to reduce food waste in Kamloops during the festive season

19h ago

Looped In

LOOPED IN WITH NIKKI OMEN: December 12, 2024

Dec 12, 2024

Residents continued to help emergency crews battle the flames when they arrived.

Since Tuesday morning, 14 wildfires have started in Kamloops, bringing the total number of active fires to 107 — and the weather isn’t entirely to blame.

Humans have been the number one cause for wildfires this year.

“Human caused wildfires have been the largest cause so far this year, with a total of 124 human caused fires out of 315 total starts since April 1st,” Fire Information Officer Aydan Coray said.

“This could have been my family or another family. who knows what could have happened if nobody saw this, if we didn’t know it was going on. I don’t know. I’m just so nervous even thinking about that, but thankfully my family was safe, everybody was safe,” de Pfyffer added.

The B.C. Wildfire Service is urging the public to stay vigilant as hundreds of wildfires burn across the Interior region, with no break from the heat in sight.

Two big fires continue to burn around the Kamloops region; the Sparks Lake fire has grown and continues to evacuate residents two weeks after it first ignited, and the Embleton Mountain fire grew for a second time to 516 hectares in size.

Initially it was moving westward away from nearby communities, however, now it’s moving down toward the Sun Peaks and Heffley Lake areas. but according to B.C. Wildfire Service, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

“The main objectives today are working on fuel managing the Heffley Louis Creek Road and the Todd Mountain Road,” explained Hannah Swift, fire information officer for the B.C. Wildfire Service.

“…and really, the fires doing exactly what we want it to do. It is slowly creeping down the hillside. And that fuel management we are doing is going to make it so that when the fire does reach that area, it won’t have as much fuel spread and then back down to those containment lines we have in place,” she continued.

Closer to home is the Mount Peter Ridgeline fire, located 10 kilometres northeast of Kamloops on the north facing side of the ridgeline.

It’s estimated to be six hectares in size.