Controlled burns play key role in Keremeos Creek wildfire response

The Keremeos Creek Wildfire continues to grow near Penticton but crews say most of the growth is due to controlled burns.

Twelve days in, the fire is now an estimated 6,836 hectares.

Fire information officer Byan Zandberg says if crews are able to get the fire where they need it to be, the people who have been displaced may soon be able return home.

“We have so many people who are affected by the orders and by the alerts. So the big priority for us is just getting people home safely and mopping it up, putting it out,” he told CityNews Tuesday.

“There are farms and homes all around the fire. Again, we do have homes and properties on many sides of this fire and so there’s been a lot of really good work going on there and we’re making good advances.”

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Crews are working on Tuesday to establish more lines for planned ignitions near the Olalla Forest Service Road to keep the south flank from spreading.

Containment remains a critical piece of the fight, Zandberg adds.

“Another thing we’re trying to do is really stitch together the containment lines that we’ve been putting in. So we want a full line — like a box drawn around this fire — where we pin it down and remove all the fuels and cool it off and just start working out way into the middle of the fire from the edge so we can call this fire being ‘held’ instead of ‘out of control,'” he explained.

“Stitching everything together, that’s a lot of the work that we’re doing. We also call it buttoning up — we’re trying to button up all of the different lines that we’ve put in and the fire guard that we’ve put in.”

Zandberg says crews are also working to reopen Highway 3A as soon as possible, noting safety remains key. He adds firefighters have made “good strides” in recent days and are hopeful evacuees will be allowed to return to their homes.

Conditions remain hot and dry in the interior region. The BC Wildfire Service notes there’s been no significant rain in the area since the Keremeos Creek fire started.

Winds also remain a concern.

Zandberg says people in the Kamloops region can expect smoky conditions to persist as crews try to completely encircle the fire.

-With files from Kareem Gouda