Rainfall calms Thompson region wildfires

KAMLOOPS — Four major fires surrounding Kamloops have calmed after significant rainfall in the northern Interior region on Monday and overnight into Tuesday (Aug. 17) morning.

“What we saw overnight was a move from having a Rank Four, Five, Six on all of our fires Sunday night to Rank Two and Three last night,” Fire Information Officer Aydan Coray says.

The Tremont Creek, July Mountain, Lytton Creek and White Rock Lake wildfires went from extremely aggressive to low and moderately vigorous, allowing the BC Wildfire Service to catch its breath.

“It will allow our crews to get a little bit ahead. They’ll be able to work on reinforcing those containment lines that they have in place without being challenged by increased fire behaviour,” Coray told CFJC News.

The precipitation helped, but it didn’t eradicate all the fires. One thing’s for sure, we need more – and it looks like we might get it.

“On the weekend it will be a system coming in from the coast, that will move into the Interior for Saturday and Sunday, bringing widespread cloudy conditions and also a fairly good chance of shower activity as well,” explains Geoff Coulson, Meteorologist at Environment Canada.

The showers are also keeping temperatures low and clearing the smoke allowing wildfire crews to get better direct attack methods on the ground and increase visibility for air crews.

Rain can come with thunderstorms, and some parts of the Interior saw lightning overnight – which is not good for fires.

“As of this morning, we only had one lightning start overnight, which was good news as well,” Coray says.

It looks like mother nature has given the B.C. Interior a sigh of relief.