By Don Urquhart, Times Chronicle
The southern tip of the Keremeos Creek wildfire is a key focus of the BC Wildfire Service (BCWS) Friday, July 5 as nearly 400 firefighters, 15 helicopters and 40 pieces of heavy equipment battle the 5,903 hectare (59 square kilometre) blaze.
A total of 1,050 properties are under Evacuation Alert while 547 properties are on Evacuation Order as of Friday, August 5. This includes a large chunk of the Village of Keremeos. Ollala has been under Evacuation Order since July 4.
“The Southern tip of the fire outside Ollala is a priority for us today,” said Bryan Zandberg, B.C. Wildfire Service (BCWS) information officer at a Friday briefing. With the focus on keeping the fire out of the Ollala drainage, he said with the fire in the Cedar Creek basin, “we don’t want it to cross over into the Ollala drainage so that’s top of mind for us.
He added that structural crews were putting in safeguards around homes along 3A north of Ollala. Apex, he said, was looking good “with a lot of machinery”.
“We really want to accentuate what we’re doing with lines, building guard along the. . . western and northern flank of the fire. Our objective is to pin this thing so that it will stop growing,” Zandberg added.
Fire perimeter and evacuation alert/order map as of Friday, August 5, mid-afternoon.
Yesterday’s efforts were made all the more difficult by what Zandberg said was a “huge wind event” yesterday with winds gusting in excess of 50 km/hr. The wind was so strong he said firefighters’ tents loaded with gear were literally blowing down the runway at the Oliver air operations camp.
This wind also translated into the Evacuation Order for Ollala and the Alert for Keremeos. The wind was gusting from north to south which pushed the southern tip towards Ollala.
“Embers were blowing across highway 3A yesterday near Ollala,” he said, adding that Hwy. 3 was closed again yesterday to allow evacuees out and to enable the BCWS to work on the fire.
He highlighted that when the highway was open there were a number of very alarming incidents of speeding drivers at the same time structural protection crews made up of nearly 35 fire departments across B.C. were on the road monitoring the fire along the highway, putting firefighter’s lives in danger.
The wind ultimately died down later in the evening yesterday. Overnight there was “some activity,” Zandberg said, but “It wasn’t really high intensity,” and the fire died down at around 3 a.m. with crews reporting much cooler temperatures around 3 a.m. (as low as 8ºC) which “reduced fire behaviour but erratic winds and steep terrain continue to be the biggest contributing factors for increased fire behaviour, it said.
A temperature inversion is forecast today up to 518 metres (1,700 feet) which will affect air operations while smokey skies may delay aircraft operations in some sections, the BCWS said in its update.
“Conditions will be similar to yesterday with slightly higher temperatures and expecting gusty winds through the day.”
As of Friday, July 5 the fire remains on the North side of Olalla Creek and Sheep Creek Road Crews continue to work around the clock along Highway 3a and on the North side of Olalla Creek protecting structures.
