Image Credit: Kathy Bugera

By Silvia Senna

WILDIFIRE SEASON

Rain helps the Kamloops-area fire fight – but not for long

Aug 9, 2023 | 4:22 PM

KAMLOOPS — Temperatures are cooling down and rain has fallen. However, firefighters say it is only a temporary advantage.

“It buys us a couple days of fires not moving or moving very slowly. We expect that, by the weekend, the landscape will dry out again and be viable to burn. It definitely helps, but it doesn’t really change things in the next few weeks,” said Tim Gazzard, the incident commander with the Adams Lake Complex wildfires.

Around 260 firefighters are expected to be staged in Chase in the upcoming days. With that in mind, boaters are asked to stay away from Adams Lake, a problem the Columbia-Shuswap Regional District (CSRD) has been having lately.

“We do have helicopters that are coming in and bucketing as needed… so if they suddenly have time to be bucketing on our fire on Lower Adams Lake, we don’t want anything to interfere with those helicopters getting the job done as quickly as possible,” explained Tracy Hughes, spokesperson for CSRD.

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Hughes said a better and safer option for boaters is Shuswap Lake, which continues to be open to the public.

The most active fires in the region are the Ross Moore Lake, Bush Creek East and Lower East Adams Lake wildfires, the last one with 92 properties under evacuation order since last Wednesday.