Official wildfire numbers could jump today

KAMLOOPS — There are 196 active fires listed on the B.C. Wildfire site this morning, but that is probably a conservative amount.

At least 40 fires have sparked in the past two days, but more will show up as very small fires from lightning hits get bigger. Lightning has caused almost 70 percent of the new fires this past week.

64 fires are burning in the Kamloops Fire Centre, 50 in the Cariboo Centre. The biggest fire of concern right now is still the Sparks Lake fire that started June 28th in the Deadman Creek area. That fire is sitting at 36,300 hectares, although it didn’t show too much growth over the weekend. It did prompt an evacuation order for some properties on the Sabiston Creek Forest Service Road, and orders are still in effect for the Durand Lake area, near Lytton, and orders for the evacuation of IR 0 and IR 1 on the Skeetchstn Reserve are believed to be still in effect this morning. Those orders were issued by the Chief and Council late Saturday night.

Complete information is available on the TNRD website and the Skeetchstn Band website.

Crews are also fighting a number of small fires in the Strawberry Hill, Dome Hills, Schiedam Lake, and Paul Creek areas. Most are under control.