The Osoyoos Fire Department worked tirelessly throughout Wednesday night and Thursday morning with their personnel to suppress the Nk’Mip wildfire as it got close to 10 feet within Spirit Ridge.
Osoyoos Fire Chief Corey Kortmeyer said that BC Wildfire worked on a northern guard, while the Osoyoos Fire Department worked on a southern guard, and sprinkler protection for both the Spirit Ridge complex and the residences on Spirit Ridge.
“We were looking after the highway side with sprinkler protection, using lines to basically moisten up both of the flanks so that if the fire came from the north or the south, or it came from the east and tumbled down, that we were able to protect all of that area,” explained Kortmeyer.
The wind on Wednesday night was erratically changing, making it even more difficult for the crew with their fire suppression efforts.
“The winds were shifting from east to west, north to south, they would go east, driven 60-70 kilometers an hour, and then stop and then reverse on themselves. There was not a lot of consistency with the way that the wind presented itself,” said Kortmeyer.
Noting the fire behaviour at the time, the crew planned an eventuality that was successful. They held the line of fire around 3 a.m. and let the fire burn up to the pavement of the residences at Spirit Ridge in order to get rid of the fuel load.
After this, they did some mop-up, or clearing up residual smoke, and making the area fire safe.
“We didn’t have any other resources except for Osoyoos Fire Rescue [last night], It was just us on the line, so the one thing that needs to be said is the dedication of the crew. They didn’t tap out,” said Kortmeyer.
The human resources are being stretched extremely thin at the moment for Oliver Fire Department, Anarchist Mountain Fire Department, and Osoyoos Fire Rescue, according to Kortmeyer. “Nobody has anybody else to give.”
Nevertheless, the fire chief said “we’ve had an absolutely tremendous outpouring of support from this community,” and thanked everyone for their donations and help.
Due to the successful fire suppression last night in which the crew was able to hold the fire line in the south end of the fire, it got rid of a lot of the finer fuels in that area.
“The north end of the fire, which basically is at the very far end of the ridge, they’ve cut a guard, a firebreak guard, and they’ve tied up all of that north end so that it shouldn’t be an issue,” said Kortmeyer.
BC Wildfire Service has handed this over to the incident management team from the National Parks department. Kortmeyer said that they will be doing a back burn to take all the fine fuels away from the Spirit Ridge Cultural Center to the north, and tying it in with the firebreak guard.
“Right now, what we’re doing is we’re looking at spot fires, and then managing our personnel for seven hour increments so that we’re not biting off more than we can chew within the next 12 to 24 hours. So we’re just taking it as a case by case basis.”
Kortmeyer also advises people to only call 911 if they absolutely have to do so.
“Hopefully, we’re going to be demobilizing and breaking down everything over the next couple of days, depending on weather, wind patterns and fire behaviour,” he said.
