While the smoke hangs heavy in many communities across the region there is some good news this week as several evacuation alerts have been lifted by the Cariboo Regional District.
“It feels good that some things are returning to normal,” CRD chair Al Richmond said Thursday. “We are getting to return more people home.”
Part of the push has been to get alerts lifted so more schools can open, he added.
“We were able to do the one at Tatla yesterday to get it out of an alert because they don’t want to operate the school when it is under an alert,” Richmond said, noting now they are working on the same for Alexis Creek.
Dog Creek School was able to reopen Thursday, Sept. 7 while Anahim Lake was scheduled to open Friday, Sept. 8.
Horse Lake Elementary School remains closed, impacting about 175 students there.
Areas where alerts have been lifted are around Canim Lake and Hawkins Lake, the eastern portion of Kleena Kleene, small area west of Tatla Lake, the northwest side of Quesnel Lake and the Maeford Lake, Anahim Lake, Ulkatcho First Nation, Nimpo Lake, Titetown, Batnuni Lake, some Nazko First Nation areas including Euchinico Creek 17, Euchinico Creek 18, Euchinico Creek 19, Trout Lake Alec 16, Trout Lake Jonny 15 and the remaining ?Esdilagh First Nation areas west of the Fraser River.
Alerts were also lifted for Alkali Lake and Dog Creek areas south of Chimney Lake, Esk’etemc First Nation areas and Stswecem’c Xgat’tem First Nation areas, including Dog Creek and Canoe Creek and for the Alexis Creek to Fraser River Highway 20 corridor and for north of McCauley Lake to Gavin Lake.
Richmond said there are still four orders and seven alerts remaining in the Cariboo Regional District.
As of Thursday afternoon, the CRD and the Yunesit’in Government downgraded the evacuation order for the area south of Highway 20 to Gang Ranch and east to the Fraser River and the Yunesit’in IR #2 to an evacuation alert.
“We still have some evacuation orders in North Green Lake spreading up from the Elephant Hill fire, down Fawn Lake Road to Horse Lake and along both sides of Highway 24.”
Fires in the region are generally being impacted by the cooler weather, Richmond added.
“We’ve seen humidity stay higher and people probably notice they are seeing or feeling dew on their grass in the morning. A week ago there was no humidity so that’s an evident sign that the relative humidity is staying higher.”
There are still dry conditions causing concerns and warmer temperatures Thursday could get as high as 27C and 28C, he said, noting winds continue to be a concern.
“We’ve seen fires before that were out and then rekindled from wind so the public has to be vigilant and report any fires they see so the fire centre can move on them right away.”
The smoke hanging over some of the region means the fires are not burning intensely, Richmond explained.
“When we have a clear sunny day and everything is beautiful that means the fires are active generally because there’s fuel and air and the smoke is moving up. When the fires are smoldering and not doing a lot then we have a tendency to get the smoke rolling in. It’s not that 100 per cent of the time, but it’s generally what we can expect. So while smoke is not a good thing for air quality, it does indicate the fires are not as active as they have been.”
In the coming days Richmond hopes there will be less smoke and that will mean the fires are more contained and hopefully under control.
The CRD has been in emergency operation mode since the Gustafsen Lake fire erupted on Thursday, July 6 west of 100 Mile House.
Its emergency operation centre has been busy and continues to be staffed inside the CRD boardroom in Williams Lake.
Richmond said if there’s an opportunity to scale it down to skeleton staff so that people can take some days off or return to their other jobs, they will.
“The forest service has indicated they will be fighting these fires toward the end of October unless we get a lot of rain. We are getting relief in the North Cariboo but down in the south at the Elephant Hill fire they get a week or two more of summer.”
