Crews now attacking fire

Photo: Diamond Creek Fire Facebook

The B.C. Wildfire Service has now dedicated resources to the growing Diamond Creek wildfire, burning between Cathedral and Manning provincial parks.

The human caused wildfire started on July 23 in Washington State, crossing over the Canadian border about a week ago, burning an estimated 4,814 hectares of B.C. terrain.

The fire has seen little growth since Monday, growing just 390 hectares overnight.

There are now two firefighters onsite, nine pieces of heavy equipment and two helicopters fighting the blaze.

"Right now we are basically working to construct some control lines in a couple of areas on the fire where the fire has reached a trigger point," fire information office Jody Lucius said. "Which would be a point that we determine additional activity is required in order to protect some sort of structure or other critical infrastructure."

Lucius cited multiple reasons why there haven't been firefighters battling the blaze, until today.

"The fire has had fairly aggressive fire behaviour, so we haven't been able to put crews in front of it safely," Lucius said.

"The other reason for that is that it's burning in steep alpine terrain so access will be very difficult and there is also quite a bit of mountain pine beetle and spruce beetle dead wood in the area, so getting rid of that is actually a bit beneficial and will help with forest health in the future."

The B.C. Wildfire Service is currently flying over the area twice a day to map the fire and develop a strategy for if it threatens values such as structures, timber and resources.

The fire has scorched a total of just under 35,000 hectares of forest across B.C. and Washington State.

Cathedral Lakes Provincial Park remains closed.