Image Credit: BC Wildfire Service / White Rock Lake wildfire

By Liam Verster

Wildfire Update

White Rock Lake wildfire grows to 45,000 hectares

Aug 6, 2021 | 12:22 PM

The past 24 hours has seen the White Rock Lake wildfire grow to 45,000 hectares in size, and it’s still growing.

Wildfire Information Officer Hannah Swift said the recent westerly winds have spread the fire mainly in the north-east and east directions, and there has also been some growth along the south-east flank.

“That most northern flank is approximately 13 kilometres southeast of Pritchard, that’s an estimate at this time, and then the most southeastern fire perimeter is approximately five kilometres west of Westside Road,” said Swift.

Swift explained the spread Thursday was mainly triggered by southwesterly winds, and Friday’s forecast calls for wind coming mainly from the west at 15-25 kilometres an hour, but gusting up to 40 km/h at times.

“So another challenging day out there for the crews with that wind, and really what we’re seeing along that eastern flank is Rank five fire behaviour.”

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Swift adds it’s an aggressive fire and because of the drought, there is a lot of fuel for the fire to burn.

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Swift also said over the last 24 hours the firefighting efforts were hampered by people refusing to follow evacuation orders.

“[Thursday] afternoon and evening our fire crew personnel were pulled away from actively deflecting the wildfire and actively protecting properties, and they were redirected to actually tactically evacuate individuals who had chosen to not leave the evacuation order area,” she said. “The individuals should not have been there in the first place and unfortunately our firefighting efforts were pulled away from protecting properties and redirected to ensuring public safety and making sure those individuals got out of there.”

Swift adds having to redirect resources to get people out of an area that should have already been evacuated not only takes the focus off of actually fighting the fires, it puts the crews and the individuals in danger.

There are currently 99 wildland firefighters and 125 structure protection personnel, and the primary focus of the firefighting efforts for at least the next 24 hours is structure protection.

“Those personnel have completed an assessment of any threatened communities should the fire progress towards them. That includes the communities of Westwold, Falkland, Noose Lake and along Westside Road including the Okanagan Indian Band. So the structure protection personnel do have a plan in place and are ready to defend those communities should it be required.”

Those personnel are also assisted by 13 helicopters, eight danger tree assessors/fallers, 51 pieces of heavy equipment, the BC Wildfire Service Incident Management Team and additional support staff.

A Forest Planning Team, a Predictive Services Unit and a Fire Behaviour Analyst are also working to determine where fire growth is expected over the coming days, and they are working in partnership with nearby communities to keep the public informed of growth and changes to evacuation orders.