Rain that fell overnight from Saturday evening managed to help control some of the wildfires that continue to burn across BC, but experts have warned that this week will see hot weather conditions return once more.
The rain on Saturday also led the city of Vernon to withdraw most of the evacuation alerts that had been issued for the municipality last week. Other cities, such as Armstrong and Kamloops, have also retracted their evacuation alerts.
“It looks like some of the fire got upwards of 2.5 millimetres of rain, which honestly isn’t a whole lot in the long term,” said fire information officer Forrest Tower in an interview with CBC News on Sunday. “But in the short term, for the rest of today going into tomorrow, it’s quite diminished the fire behaviour for most of the fire.”
However, the BC Wildfire Service warned that the hot and dry conditions returning at the start of this week will create a high-pressure ridge that could lead to a heatwave.
“By the end of next week, it looks to be back to conditions where there’ll be some quite significant fire behaviour,” explained Tower.
“[The heat wave] will bring some more stable conditions, but it will really continue to dry out those fuels,” added BC Wildfire Service fire information officer Briana Hill.
“Looking even further ahead to when the ridge breaks down, [it will also bring] the potential for new ignitions.”
As of August 08, 2021, 279 wildfires were still burning in BC – 31 of which were identified as fires “of note” by the BC Wildfire Service. Most of the wildfires are concentrated in BC’s Interior. CBC News also reported that 6,902 properties in BC are on evacuation order, with another 36,000 under evacuation alert.
