The fire size of the St. Mary Wildfire has grown a little bit, but the BC Wildfire Service said it’s due to successful planned burns.
The fire is now at 4,640 hectares.
It’s been almost two weeks since the fire was first sparked.
Cranbrook fire chief Scott Driver explains the first hours after the blaze was sparked.
“Kelowna fire dispatch notified the Cranbrook Fire Department about a report of a small wildland fire on Mission Wasa Low Road,” he said.
“All of the available staff at the time responded to the incident and while we were coming down the hill we received a secondary report from an aircraft overhead that notified dispatch that the fire was significant in size.”
It was caused by downed power lines and was quickly spreading out of control.
“When we arrived at the 5200 block of Mission Wasa Low Road there was a downed power line and there was a fire at that location heading North East out onto the reserve, down towards the St. Mary River and up the hill. The fire at the time wasn’t significant in size but it was being very aggressively driven in all three of those directions by very high and gusty winds.”
But that wasn’t the only fire in the area.
“Just after our arrival, a community member notified the command structure that there was a second fire approximately two kilometres down the road from an additional power line struck by a tree that had fallen. The fire at that location was inaccessible. The power lines were blocking complete access to the road. We immediately asked hydro to clear those lines as best as possible for us, but we had to remain behind the power lines before that could be done.”
An evacuation order was issued by ʔaq̓am and staff started alerting residents as fast as they could.
“We were made aware that the administration team back in the ʔaq̓am community was notifying residents out on reserve by phone and that there was a member that made their way on a back 4X4 road to start knocking on doors and get people out. We’re very thankful for those efforts because people are our first priority.”
