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Favourable weather conditions meant fire crews fighting the Flat Lake wildfire were able to complete some planned hand ignitions and secure guard in certain areas, the BC Wildfire Service said.
The wildfire — burning west of Flat Lake and 27 kilometres southwest of 100 Mile House — is still estimated at 53,211 hectares in size.
Fire Information Officer Nicole Bonnett said on Tuesday evening, the winds allowed crews to conduct some planned ignitions that had been previously postponed due to poor visibility.
“We did about half of the planned ignitions, and then the wind switched again, so we shut down the operation and will wait until conditions are better to do the other half,” Bonnett said.
She said Tuesday’s ignitions were completed from what is locally known as the gravel pit westward to the Valenzuela Creek area.
Bonnett said as the wind shifted, halting the ignitions, conditions at another area of the fire were impacted.
Kilometres away, the change in winds pushed the fire on the west flank out across the Dog Creek Forest Service Road and into a cut block.
“The crews and air craft and heavy equipment were able to get there right away, and they were there really late last night working on it,” Bonnett said.
Early Wednesday morning, heavy equipment and crew members were back in the area, and were able to contain the excursion.
On Saturday, a storm cell caused another excursion at the north east corner of the fire, near Evergreen Drive and 93 Mile Loop.
Bonnett said crews have now completed a machine guard around the area and finished establishing a hose lay.
“Where that excursion was, there was still some unburned fuels, so the crews this morning used some hand ignition and removed the remaining fuels so the fire can’t be pushed that way on its own by the winds,” Bonnett said.
“There’s nothing left for it to burn up there anymore, just to further secure that guard.”
On Wednesday, there were 102 firefighters and 30 pieces of heavy equipment fighting the Flat Lake fire. There were 16 helicopters being shared among a couple of fires in the region.
Ten structure protection personnel are also assigned to work in the area.
