INSIDE: Check out the hot music lineup at this year’s exhibition Pg. 21 July 30, 2010
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Medieval meet-up at Island 22
LOCAL NEWS, SPORTS, WEATHER & ENTERTAINMENT chilliwacktimes.com
Hot, dry conditions spark fires BY TYLER OLSEN tolsen@chilliwacktimes.com
M
inistry of Forests firefighters have snuffed out two small fires that broke out this week in the Chilliwack River Valley. Both fires—one at Centre Creek, 34 kilometres up the valley, the other just off Chilliwack River Road, 22 kilometres up the valley—were quickly brought under control by firefighters and air support after they were reported Monday. “We did action with air tankers and bucketing to minimize the risk of spread on those fires,” said fire information officer Mike McCulley. Both blazes were about 3.5 hectares in size and neither threatened any structures. McCulley said both fires are in patrol stage now, which means crews have been pulled off the sites and no new growth is occurring. Crews completed infra-red scans of both sites Thursday morning. M c C u l ley said the “The forest is Centre Creek dry, dry.” fire was free of hot spots. Kris Sanders That wasn’t the case at the so-called Chilliwack Road fire, where 13 hot spots were spotted. “You can probably expect to see some crews move in there today to get in and dig through those hot spots and do some detailed work,” said McCulley A complete machine-built fire guard surrounds the Chilliwack River Road fire, and an excavator remains on the scene there. The cause of the two fires is still under investigation, although McCulley said the two fires were definitely human-caused because there were no lightning strikes in the area. Fred McConnell, who stopped at the Chilliwack Road fire on Monday to snap some photographs, said fire crews on the scene were taking photos of vehicle licence plates and were on the lookout for a red car.
River valley blazes broke out on Monday, but now under control
The fires caught the eye of more than a couple people in the valley. When Kris Sanders, who operates a non-profit camp at Chilliwack Lake, arrived at his camp on Monday, he saw the lake valley filled with smoke. Sanders had driven to the camp with a gas-fired water pump. He took a boat out to investigate the source but only found more and more smoke, which had evidently blown down the valley from one of the fires. Sanders is reminding campers of
the fire bans currently in place for the entire Coastal Fire Centre and to be careful of anything that can cause sparks. “Any dropped cigarette or muffler dragging makes sparks.” Worringly, Sanders said people often camp along Chilliwack Lake in non-designated boat-accessible spots. He said they sometimes have fires, even when bans are currently in place, although no such fires were reported last week. “The forest is dry, dry,” he said.
Photos by Fred McConnell/For the TIMES
Conair suppression teams from Abbotsford work on a forest fire in the Chilliwack River Valley on Monday.
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