Fire Near Norman Lake
Waterbomber working the Norman Lake fire was spotted flying low over Prince George-photo 250News
Prince George, B.C.- A wildfire is burning near Norman Lake, west of Prince George.
Prince George Fire Centre spokesperson Amanda Reynolds says the fire is about 10 hectares in size “We have 27 firefighters working on the blaze, as well as having two helicopters dropping buckets of water. In addition to that we have water bombers laying down fire retardant in the area.”
Reynolds says there have been discussions with the Regional District of Fraser Fort George about issuing an evacuation alert for those who are at their cabins along the lake. The fire is burning about 2kms northwest of Norman Lake.
Smoke from the fire may be visible from Highway16 and neighbouring communities.
Comments
According to Prince George accuweather, no rain is expected for nearly two weeks so they had better hit this fire with everything they have while it is still small… anyone remembers last year’s Little Bobtail Lake forest fire? I hope they don’t repeat the same mistake!
I thought it was supposed to rain a ton Sunday, and Monday?
Why wait till its too late “Campfire Ban Now”
Category 2 fire ban is on now I believe
2 km nw of the lake is where last year the fire fighting forest service deactivated a road that they did not create.
Talk about shoots-in-foot syndrome.
The fire fighters apparently have a standard operating procedure of deactivating any and all roads “they” deem are not needed. As evidenced by this incident where Norman Lake now only has one access route, because of some short sighted excavator operator or fire supervisor with a superiority complex “deciding” the road is not needed.
Based on the reported location of the fire,If an escape is needed to the west, the route is no longer available.
Not only did the fire fighters or forest service not create that road access, that road is estimated to be over 60 years old, and could be much older due to the homesteads that used to be there.
This current practice of deactivating roads as a matter of course is causing a safety concern, and a safety issue. They do not necessarily know where the roads go, or how much traffic uses them and often these are well known and used wilderness routes all over the bush. These routes are used by foresters, hunters, fishers, wild life, hikers, bikers, atv’rs, ad nausea um.
Have a nice day, and a safe weekend.
I thought that all recorded users in an area had to be consulted prior to a road being deactivated. That would include trappers, guides, ranchers etc. or anyone with property in the area, leased or owned. If this negatively affected me, and I’d definitely have an issue if it left me with only one access or escape route when there had been two i would be contacting MoF to have it reinstated.
Loki’s wrong- the “fire fighters” certainly do not “have a standard operating procedure of deactivating any and all roads “they” deem are not needed.”
They might rehab roads and fireguards that they’ve built but they don’t go running around deactivating forest roads willy-nilly. Most of those roads are tenured and they don’t have the authority to do that.
As for this: “This current practice of deactivating roads as a matter of course is causing a safety concern, and a safety issue.”- roads get deactivated for lots of reasons:to decrease risk to the environment from sedimentation, mass wasting etc., to try take hunting pressure off of ungulates from road hunters and simply when operations in the area are complete. Why carry the liability when you’re finished with it? Remember why those roads were built in the first place; they weren’t put in for your convenience. Further, deactivated doesn’t always mean “impassable”.
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