By Chad Klassen

Smoke causing more cancellation of events in Kamloops

Aug 19, 2018 | 1:48 PM

KAMLOOPS — Smoke continues to blanket the city, but believe it or not the amount of particulate matter in the air is improving with the highest reading on Sunday afternoon in Upper Sahali at 302 micrograms per cubic metre compared to readings in the 400s on Saturday.

The norm is between five and 15 micrograms per cubic metre, but the slight improvement wasn’t enough to save certain events like Overlanders Day, which was cancelled due to the smoke. 

“Even last night watching the air quality index at 11 o’clock, fingers are crossed and you’re hoping and praying, and I got up this morning at four o’clock, looked outside, thought about it, watched it for an hour and said ‘health first,’” said North Shore Business Improvement Association executive director Jeremy Heighton on the decision to cancel the event. “It’s all about community and it’s all about the celebration of community, but you got nothing if you have no health.”

The NSBIA said it was a tough call with more than 1,000 hours put into the sixth annual event. 

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“We had a lot of engagement with our entertainers and with our exhibitors,” noted Heighton. “There was quite a bit of improvement, but just not enough for us to move forward. At some point, you have to make a balance, right? You have to say ‘what’s the most important here?’ and the human health is the most important.”

Meantime, the somewhat improved visibility was enough to keep things moving at the Kamloops Airport, a day after a number of flights were cancelled and delayed. At least one flight was cancelled on Sunday at Fulton Field, but it was business as usual. 

“Yesterday marked the first flight impacts from wildfire smoke and we saw diversions and cancellations as a result,” said Kamloops Airport manager Heather McCarley. “This morning, there were a few more cancellations, though visibility has improved and we’ve seen flight operations resume as of 10 o’clock today.”

McCarley noted that pilots need about a kilometre in order to take off and land safely. The smoke has improved to the point where it doesn’t pose a great risk to inbound and outbound flights. 

“At the Kamloops Airport, we can generally operate down to about 2,600 feet visibility, which is about a kilometre,” said McCarley. “Around that point, whether it’s fog, snow or smoke, when the visibility goes lower than that, you’ll see cancellations and delays.”

The smoke that’s invaded Kamloops in the last week is mainly coming from fires in northern B.C., where the Shovel Lake wildfire burning northeast of Burns Lake is at 85,744 hectares, the largest in the province. 

“Due to the sheer number of wildfires burning (547), it can be difficult to pinpoint where exactly the smoke is coming from,” said fire information officer Kyla Fraser. “But it appears right now that the wind patterns are pushing some of that smoke from fires near Prince George and Quesnel down into the Southern Interior.”

As for Overlanders Day, there is a slight chance it could still happen this year, potentially in an indoor location, but the NSBIA has already planned to move the event up in the calendar next year to try and avoid the smoke. 

“Next year we will be doing Overlanders Day in mid-July, the 21st specificially,” said Heighton. “We think the opportunity for smoke is going to be so much less in July that we have a better chance of not having interruptions.”

The smoke has also forced the cancellation of the grand-opening for the Industrial Training and Technology Centre that was scheduled to happen on Monday at Thompson Rivers University.