(File photo/BCWS)

By Pete McIntyre

Update

UPDATE: Westside Road most active area of White Rock Lake fire site

Aug 19, 2021 | 10:00 AM

UPDATE 10:00 a.m. Aug. 19

The BC Wildfire Service is reporting no change in size to the White Rock Lake wildfire today, still at 81, 139 hectares.

Most of the fire saw lower, rank 1 and 2 behaviour on Wednesday.

“Since the wind event on August 15, objectives have been re-established and suppression efforts continue on all flanks of the wildfire,” said the BCWS in its update. “Yesterday, rank 1 and rank 2 fire behaviour was observed on most flanks. The most active area of the fire yesterday was along Westside Road, north of Fintry Park where current drought conditions are already causing fuels to dry out again. Air support will continue to support ground crews with suppression activities throughout the day today.”

The firefighting effort involves 278 wildland firefighters, 88 structure protection personnel, 14 helicopters,  19 danger tree assessors/fallers and 91 pieces of heavy equipment.

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Highway 97 is open between Pinaus Lake Road and Monte Creek for 32 km for through travel, no stopping.

Douglas Lake Road is closed between Hwy 97 and Chapperon Lake near Falkland.

Westside Road is closed in both directions between Deighton Road and Louis Estates Road (19 to 60 km east of West Kelowna).

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White Rock Lake fire size keeps growing, but not from new activity
Aug 18, 2021 | 10:57 AM

The size of the White Rock Lake wildfire has grown again, but it’s not because of increased fire activity.

The BC Wildfire Service now estimates its size at 81,139 hectares, an increase of almost three-thousand hectares from Tuesday’s 78,139 hectares.

“We had fairly significant growth on the night of [Sunday] Aug. 15 and the morning of the 16th,” said Forrest Tower, information officer with the BC Wildfire Service (BCWS) stationed in Vernon. “So the continued size update is a reflection of better mapping, basically from that really substantial growth. The fire, at this point, isn’t really growing in any size. It’s really diminished in terms of fire activity. It’s just we are continually getting better perimeter tracking of the fire.”

The size has enlarged by about 17,000 hectares since the weekend, which Tower says points out how intense the activity was on Sunday and overnight Monday.

“It was pretty much all at once, and then it took us up until today to get the detailed tracks from some of the areas of the fire. Someone had to fly them, or go on the ground to take a GPS track to get them,” Tower explained.

16:37 Aug 17 #WhiteRockLakeFire update from #vernonbc #ShareYourWeather pic.twitter.com/eVZsONmcEq

— Wilfried Mulder VE7OHM (@wilfmulder) August 17, 2021

More than 80 structures in the Westside Road area (Central Okanagan and Okanagan Indian Band reserve) were either destroyed or sustained significant damage from the fire on Aug. 15 and 16.

Westside Road remains closed between Deighton Road and Highway 97 North for 40.6 km’s with no inbound entry, according to Drive BC.

Closure area on Westside Road (Image credit: Drive BC)

Tower told Vernon Matters there are no particular concerns with the fire in the coming days due to the cooler, potentially wetter weather.

“It’s still a large active wildfire so we’re still obviously having a heightened presence in the area in terms of crews, helicopters and heavy machinery, that’s still all ongoing. The weather, though, has given us a really good break in terms of fire activity,” Tower remarked.

LISTEN: Forrest Tower from the BCWS talks about the outlook for White Rock Lake fire over the next few days: