Wildfire Crew Prioritizes Building Containment Line to Surround Destructive BC Wildfire

British Columbia’s wildfire service is working to create containment lines around an “aggressive” blaze that has already destroyed at least six homes.

Jeff Walsh, an incident commander with the BC Wildfire Service, says crews were using heavy equipment on the mountain slopes above Spences Bridge to prevent fire from burning downslope toward the southern Interior community.

The homes lost were in the Venables Valley, near Spences Bridge, and Colton Davies with the Thompson-Nicola Regional District says they were among 20 buildings destroyed by the nearly 200-square-kilometre Shetland Creek fire.

Several communities are in the path of wildfires in B.C. as crews fight the most threatening of 430 active blazes, 80 per cent of which have been started by some of the thousands of lightning strikes that have swept over B.C. in the last few days.

Mr. Walsh says in a video update that hot and dry conditions coupled with gusty winds have fuelled erratic and aggressive fire behaviour at the Shetland Creek blaze, driving its spread to the north.

The wildfire service says local planes and helicopters, as well as aircraft from the Yukon, Ontario, Quebec and Alaska have joined the fire fight, with almost 100 airtanker missions from July 18 to 21 dropping 5.4 million litres of suppressant.

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People using bodies of water near out-of-control fires, such as Shawnigan Lake adjacent to the Old Man Lake wildfire on Vancouver Island, have been told to “keep well away” from aircraft either skimming water or operating in the area.

The B.C. Ministry of Emergency Management’s latest update says about 470 properties have been ordered evacuated, while another 3,100 properties are on evacuation alert.