There’s been 425 wildfires to date within the Southeast Fire Centre which is 100 more than last year. 27 per cent of those fires are in the Arrow Zone – that’s 114 according to Wildfire Officer Jason Hall. “Our average in Arrow, so the zone that we’re in right now, [is] 89 fires – we’re already up to 114, so we’re already above that. It’s not the busies year we’ve ever had. In 2009 we had 169 fires.”
He says August 11 was a very bad day with 33 new starts in 24 hours, but despite conditions crews persevere. “We’re working our staff max hours all the time. Know that a lot of the firefighters are locals, so we’re all breathing the same smoke. We appreciate that it’s not optimum.”
Hall spoke at Tuesday’s wildfire community information session in Castlegar hosted by the Regional District of Central Kootenay. He describes one of the challenges that have made the Deer Creek, Syringa Creek and Bulldog Mountain wildfires difficult from the get-go. “Can we actually get to it? Like, we can look at it from the air but can we actually put some boots on the ground and hit it safely there. And unfortunately, these three fires we’re talking about when they’re in their primary stages there, they’re all top third of slope. Heavy timber, no access points to get either in there with those, the iron machine guards or personnel.”
Hall says sometimes the fires have to move down slope first before crews can get to them and that air support will only fly when it’s safe.
