Forecasted winds threatening wildfire progress

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – An unstable weather pattern over the next few days is worrying firefighters dealing with more than 200 blazes across BC. Winds are expected to pick up tomorrow which could spread the flames.

Most of the fires right now were sparked by lightning and crews are especially worried about the areas in and around Grand Forks and Rock Creek where a couple of fires are burning right now.

Chief Fire Information Officer Kevin Skrepnek says the silver lining to all this is temperatures are expected to drop a bit as well.

“So it is a bit of a mixed blessing in that case it won’t be quite as hot and it does sound as if into the weekend we could be seeing some scattered showers in some areas. And we’ll return to seasonal, calm conditions by the weekend — warm and dry but not as much wind.”

More than a dozen new fires were sparked yesterday when the province spent $3.4 million dollars trying to contain them.

“In the last seven days we’ve had 246 fires across the province, of those, we’ve kept all but 35 to less than a hectare in size. And I think that really speaks to the efforts that are going on, especially in terms of initial attack — getting these fires contained before they grow to become major incidents.”

So far the province has spent nearly $220 million fighting fires. The initial budget for the season was $63 million.

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