Desert Daze Organizers Keeping Watch on Shetland Creek Wildfires

While it may be more than a month away, organizers of the 2024 Desert Days Music Festival are keeping an eye on the wildfire situation as it pertains to Shetland Creek Wildfire.

The annual two-day festival which brings hundreds to the community of Spences Bridge will be held Sept. 6 and 7, celebrating their 13th anniversary in the Community.

In an email, organizers noted that:

“We are of course monitoring the wildfires situation in our region very closely. At the time of this writing it appears that the Shetland Creek fire – which is the one that is so far having the most impact on the Spences Bridge area – is not growing significantly and actually seems to be becoming less of a threat to people and property daily – thanks in part to the recent rains but primarily to the hard work and sacrifice by the dedicated men and women firefighters on the front lines, and the other persons and resources that have been deployed against it. We have so much appreciation for their continued efforts on all our behalf.

As the Desert Daze festival is still over a month away (Sept. 6 & 7) we are optimistically hopeful that by then any current threat to Spences Bridge and outlying regions will be completely nullified or at the least, very minimal. We realize that the summer dry season is still not behind us, but we are keeping our collective fingers crossed.

That being said, if in our judgement – as the festival weekend nears – there still remains a possible threat to the safety of the participants, patrons and volunteers of the Desert Daze Festival we will unreservedly make the hard decision to postpone or cancel the event.”

Currently the Shetland Creek Wildfire remains out of control and remains one of six wildfires of note in the province. The wildfire has been burning since it was reported July 12, and remains at more than 24-thousand hectares in size.