Firefighters gain control of wildfire south of Fort Fraser

Two wildfires continue to burn in the Vanderhoof Fire Zone west of Prince George, one of which is out of control, but neither is threatening residential areas.

The biggest of the two, the Milligan Lake fire about 12 kilometres south of Fraser Lake, covers an estimated 60 hectares. Believed to have been lightning-caused, it was first detected Monday afternoon. The BC Wildfire Service has deployed 30 firefighters, two helicopters and nine pieces of heavy equipment to the area and they have made significant progress the past two days. As of Thursday afternoon that fire is being held.

A smaller fire west of Vanderhoof detected on May 5 is under control.

Prince George continues to be shrouded by wildfire smoke moving in from fires in northeastern B.C. and Alberta. The air quality was especially bad in Prince George on Tuesday, when heavy smoke forced people indoors. Levels of fine atmospheric particulate matter PM2.5 that can have harmful health effects are expected to drop over the next few days. PM2.5 refers to particles less than 2.5 micrometers in size (about three per cent of the diameter of a human hair).

The website FireSmoke.ca tracks the spread of wildfire smoke and is predicting PM2.5 levels will drop from the current 28-60 range (third-least polluted) to the 10-28 range (second-least) by tonight and will continue to improve Friday morning. By late Friday night, there might not be any fire smoke over the city. Until conditions improve, the city and north central Interior region remain under an air quality advisory.

“For the next two days we are still expecting to see heavy fire smoke across the Prince George Fire Centre, but when that weather change comes in the long weekend that smoke should start pushing out to the east northeast and into Alberta again,” said Prince George Fire Centre information officer Davin Richmond.

“We are getting a lot of inquiries into the smoke, people thinking there are fires in and around Prince George, but we actually have zero fires burning within the Prince George Fire Zone. Some of the larger fires in the Fort St. John area, the Donnie Creek and Stoddart Creek fires are putting up a lot of smoke and we’re getting a lot of smoke from Alberta.”