Lightning Sparks Dozens Of New Fires

By Michelle Cyr-Whiting

The Prince George Fire Centre is scrambling to deal with 47 new blazes touched off by the lightning and thunderstorms that occurred throughout the region yesterday afternoon and evening.

Fire Information Officer, Barb Durau, says the main fire of note is a 360-hectare blaze burning just 6.3-kilometres southeast of the rural community of Crescent Spur, about 40-kilometres northwest of McBride.

Durau says an incident management team is on-scene and a fire camp is being set up to house the two unit crews (40 firefighters) assigned to battle the blaze.

She says the flames are, so far, well away from Highway 16-East, but there is concern smoke may reduce visibility for motorists travelling along the route - especially this evening, so traffic control personnel will be setting up later today to assist with traffic flow.

At this time, Durau says she is not aware of any evacuation alerts for residents living in the small community of Crescent Spur.  She says no structures are being threatened.

The Fire Information Officer says air patrols continue across the region and crews are being deployed where necessary.  She says additional fire fighters have been brought into the Prince George Fire Centre, but she’s not sure, at this point, if they’re out-of-province, or from other parts of BC.

Durau says, "Due to the high fire danger rating and risk of further lightning, the public is asked to be extremely careful with their campfires. Human-caused fires are preventable and divert resources from naturally occurring lightning-caused fires."

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