The Southwest of Deka Lake wildfire that has caused evacuation orders and an alert has increased in size from the 70 hectares it was last (Thursday) night.
Erin Bull is a Fire Information Officer with the BC Wildfire Service.
“The fire is now estimated to be 200 hectares in size and it’s still in out of control status. So today we have 40 firefighters, three helicopters and a heavy equipment task force working on suppressing the fire. And we are seeing increased fire activity there today which is producing a lot of smoke that will be quite visible from surrounding communities.”
Here, Bull goes over the plan of attack for today.
“Our machine heavy equipment task force is working to establish a fire guard focusing on the southeast corner of the fire, and crews are working to establish a hose lay around the perimeter of the fire.”
Bull says there are 44 active fires in the Cariboo Fire Centre.
“Seven of them are in the Quesnel zone. The majority of them remain in the 100 Mile zone and we have five in the Central zone, so that’s kind of in the Williams Lake/Horsefly kind of areas.”
The fires in the Quesnel zone are concentrated out west in the Kluskus/Batnuni Lake areas.
Bull says there are no fires threatening Quesnel or Williams Lake, and she says the only fire of note in the Cariboo is the one near Deka Lake.
-With files from George Henderson, mycariboonow.com