White Rock Lake wildfire (File photo/Okanagan Indian Band/Facebook)

By Pete McIntyre-Vernon Matters

White Rock Lake Wildfire

Major ignition scheduled for Monday on White Rock Lake fire

Aug 29, 2021 | 3:50 PM

VERNON — Monday is expected to be the day when a massive ignition is held on the White Rock Lake wildfire west of Vernon.

The process is expected to produce significant smoke which will be visible around a wide area of the North Okanagan and even the Central Okanagan.

The BC Wildfire Service says given the extreme drought over the fire area, the 3,500 hectare ignition in the Irish Creek Road area is critical to ensure that the fire perimeter is secure as possible before winter with no fuel available for further growth.

“Without these ignitions, the wildfire will continue to burn out of control into winter in heavy fuels with the potential to impact Highway 97 and the surrounding interface,” BCWS said on its website Sunday.

The ignition will be held Aug. 30, if conditions on site remain favourable.

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“The ignitions will occur in three phases and broken down into three sections,” explained the BCWS. “First, a heli-torch machine is used to build heat and create a column within the burn area. This draws the main ignition up and into the column well within established control lines. Second, a Plastic Sphere Dispenser will be used to conduct the main ignition in each section to manage fire intensity and utilize terrain to draw fire into the column. Third, ground crews will ignite from control lines using drip torches to bring fire right to the guards in a controlled manner.”

A large fuel free guard has been constructed over the last two weeks that will act as the containment line for the ignition.

The ignition will be broken down into three sections to control fire intensity and to allow for ground crews to tie off the each section into built control lines.

Section 1: Irish Creek -> the plateau.

Section 2: Six Mile Creek -> the plateau.

Section 3: Plateau -> guards.

Support Resources:

• 2 helicopters with PSD machines
• 1 helicopter with heli-torch
• 40 BCWS Type 1 firefighters to conduct hand ignitions
• Structure protection task forces (Day and Night Shift)
• 6 heavy helicopters for cooling support
• 2 mobile retardant pits