Shuswap wildfire sees minimal growth as locals join efforts

Over a dozen trained locals have been deployed to help fight the wildfire raging in B.C.’s Shuswap region, which officials say has seen minimal growth in recent days.

In an update on Monday, the BC Wildfire Service says 17 people from the community have joined crews tackling the Bush Creek East wildfire after receiving training over the weekend.

Mike McCulley, wildfire information officer, says the service is happy to work with local communities to help in firefighting efforts.

“In this case, the community took the initiative to get themselves organized, provide their training that is required, work on getting signed up, and then making sure they’re safe to be integrated in our line. So for us, it’s not significantly different than what we do,” he explained.

“I think the real difference here was that the local community, the local government took every up initiative here to try to work with us a little bit by getting that training done and bringing their locals in and having them really come together to support our effort and we’re very, very grateful for it.”

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The Shuswap region has been the focal point of a debate on whether locals should have more of a role in firefighting efforts. This comes as many defied evacuation orders in an effort to protect their homes.

This has led to emergency crews blocking supplies being shipped to those who have stayed behind, something the Columbia Shuswap Regional Districts (CSRD) stands by.

“We are required to as best we can provide security to those evacuation order areas, and we’re not going to take the risk of having third parties enter order areas at all,” said John McLean, chief administrative officer for the regional district.

Meanwhile, crews say the Bush Creek East fire remained relatively stable, now measuring at 43,000 hectares.

Hundreds of personnel helping battle wildfire

Along with the locals, McCulley says there are over 300 people dedicated to fighting the blaze. That includes over 250 firefighters, 97 structure protection personnel, and 84 supportive personnel. There is also a contingent of firefighters from South Africa who have joined the efforts.

McCulley says that crews are now beginning to get a sense of the scale of infrastructure damage from the wildfire.

“I can see hundreds of burned hydro poles and I have to tell you, the work that BC Hydro does is extremely impressive. They’re in there replacing those,” he explained.

“As soon as a fire moves through, we’re always talking about recovery right away and trying to get those infrastructure companies in.”

There is also a growing risk, McCulley adds, of animals like bears being attracted to food that is being left behind in evacuation zones.

“I did want to add to the list of downed power poles, damaged bridges, broken infrastructure, dangerous trees — wildlife is on that list as well,” he said.

Looking ahead, McCulley says crews are keeping an eye on the weather, but don’t believe it’ll cause the fire’s size to balloon like it has previously.

“We do know that the winds are going to pick up a little bit tomorrow (Tuesday) as a small system moves through, but it will be nothing like the winds we saw a week ago or more that caused the major growth on this fire,” he said.

“We are hopeful to receive some precipitation later tomorrow through the night — that’s Tuesday night — but we’re still not sure how much that looks like the last time we had precipitation on this fire. It was very broadly ranging in volume across the whole fire range from one millimetre to 15. So we will expect something similar and we’ll expect the winds to do similar things.”

The Bush Creek East fire, which is one of two that make up the Adams Lake complex of fires, has destroyed or damaged over 170 structures. No deaths have been reported.

With files from Liza Yuzda and Charlie Carey