Fire crews continue battle two fires burning in Slocan Valley
By Nelson Daily Staff
Fire crews are busy trying to contain two lightning-caused fires in the Slocan Valley that flared up Friday Jordan Turner Communications Specialist for the Southeast Fire Centre said Sunday.
The two fires — Enterprise Creek and Monument Creek — are highly visible due to the proximity to Highway 6 and are currently posing no threat to structures or communities in the Valley.
“The Enterprise Creek fire is 40 percent contained with close to 30 firefighters working on the fire,” Turner told The Nelson Daily Sunday.
“And the Monument Creek fire is 30 percent contained as crews with helicopter support continue to work on the fire.”
The Enterprise Creek fire is 1.5 kilometres east of Highway 6 and 8.5 kilometres south of the village of Silverton while the Monument Creek fire is 10 kilometres east of Highway 6 and 11.5 kilometres southeast of Slocan City.
Both fires are in the 14.5-hectare size range.
Turner said a third fire in the Slocan Valley region was reported in the Evans Lake in the Valhalla’s.
The Evans Lake fire is a quarter of a hectare and is fully contained.
The fire danger rating in the majority of the Southeast Fire Centre is currently High with areas of Extreme near Invermere, Cranbrook, Nakusp, Kaslo, Revelstoke and Grand Forks.
Turner said to date the region has not been hit as hard as other parts of the province, prompting operations officials to ship off crews to the hardest hit areas and fight the local fires using contract firefighters.
“We’re lucky in comparison to other places in the province,” Turner said. “So we’ve been able to send a lot of our resources to other places.”
The Smith Creek wildfire near West Kelowna that forced 2,500 residents from their homes last week is roughly 50-per-cent contained allowing fire officials to wave the evacuation notice to approximately 1,900 people Sunday.
Temperatures that came close to setting new records in the region have subsided and rain is expected in the area beginning Tuesday and into Wednesday.
“We have some systems coming through with a possibility of lightning but its supposed to come with a lot of rain,” Turner said.
“And if lightning comes with a lot of rain the rain usually takes care of that forest and the lightning doesn’t result in any wildfires.”
“But there’s always the possibility with lightning that a fire can smoulder for a while a pickup once we hit a drying, hot trend in the weather we are expecting at the end of this week so we’ll be carefully monitoring when the weather gets warmer.”
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