Precipitation across the Shuswap helping in the fight against the Bush Creek East wildfire

KAMLOOPS — Help, in the form of cooler wet weather, has finally arrived in Shuswap, allowing firefighters to gain some ground on their efforts to hold back the Bush Creek East wildfire.

The fire has torn through the Shuswap, destroying more than one hundred properties and key pieces of infrastructure. It’s now bearing down on Turtle Valley and Sorrento, but the change in weather has helped the firefighting effort.

“Weather is the story of the day as it often is with wildfires,” said BCWS Fire Information Officer Mike McCulley. He said rain fell across the entire wildfire overnight, cooling fire behaviour. “We’re going to be bought a few days where we can really focus our effort and try to gain some containment on the fire.”

The most active section of the fire over the last 24 hours was in the southeast corner of the blaze in the Turtle Valley. While the wildfire is uncomfortably visible from the community of Sorrento, the BCWS says it has worked successfully with local fire departments to build strong containment lines to block the fire. “We will continue to be patrolling this area at night, making sure we’re attentive and ready to go if anything does change,” said McCully. “But currently, we don’t expect that to happen.”

The fire is still measured at approximately 430 square kilometres. The BCWS has approximately 380 firefighters on the ground battling the flames.

Meantime the Columbia Shuswap Regional District says it is planning to host bus tours for fire-impacted residents as early as next week. It says the tours will occur before evacuation orders are lifted through the fire-ravaged region.