(BC Wildfire Service).

By Aaron Schulze and James Peters

White Rock Lake Wildfire

Planned ignition to take place on White Rock Lake wildfire due to favourable conditions

Aug 24, 2021 | 4:19 PM

KAMLOOPS — The BC Wildfire Service (BCWS) says a small-scale planned ignition will take place along the eastern flank of the White Rock Lake wildfire, north of Newport Beach towards Irish Creek Road.

In its Tuesday (Aug. 24) update, BCWS says conditions are favourable for the planned ignition as early as Wednesday.

Todd Nessman told reporters the unusually cool and wet conditions have offered a big assist.

“We haven’t had any significant growth over this last period since our last update call on Thursday,” said Nessman. “We’re starting to see some alerts and orders drop and we’re making some excellent progress on all of our large fires and complexes.”

“We’re feeling reasonably confident moving into the end of August. We’re starting to see some of the effects of fall come in to help us. Really, what we’ve seen is more fall-like patterns than traditionally August-like weather patterns — which has been very helpful for us in our operations.”

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BCWS says its goal is to remove approximately 150 hectares of fuel that exists between the established control line and the fire, which is currently burning in steep, inaccessible terrain.

Increased smoke will be highly visible to nearby communities. The planned ignition will begin as soon as the site conditions are favourable.

Much of the Interior is seeing sunshine and seasonal warmth mid-week, but Nessman describes that as a “slight blip”.

“Tuesday and Wednesday, we’re going to see a slight blip and have a little bit of a drying pattern when temperatures will increase slightly, and we’ll be back to almost seasonal temperatures — 24-to-27 in the south,” he says.

Provincially, there are now 24 wildfires of note, down from 30 at the season’s height.