The Prince George Fire Centre has been leading the way towards BC’s worst fire season on record, and the Prince George Airport has been helping facilitate over a dozen aircraft that are fighting the fires.
Gord Duke, the President and CEO of YXS, told My PG Now “there are about 13 or 14 aircraft involved in the operation… normally we would have six stationed here.”
“When they are busy, if they don’t need fuel they just pick up retardant and get back up in the air. In some cases, they leave one engine running. It is load and go,” he explained. “Our involvement is to make sure there are smooth fueling operations and they can get on and off the airfield quickly, which is controlled by the tower.”
Despite the sharp increase in activity around the airport, Duke assured flyers it is not causing any delays – he said the majority of delays to flights right now are due to restraints in Vancouver.
Duke added the smoke is a non-issue for airplane visibility, saying “this doesn’t impact the aircraft – not like when you have thick ground fog… The instrument navigation aids can help them, there has been no impact that we are aware of, to departures or arrivals due to the smoke.”
The smoke in Prince George’s skies has mostly blown in from the west – throughout most of the day Prince George has had the worst air quality of anywhere in Canada.