After a smoky Tuesday afternoon that prompted a health advisory from Environment Canada, the skies over Prince George have cleared significantly and hopefully that better air quality will remain.
A wildfire near Nation Lakes in the Omineca region about 200 kilometres northwest of Prince George that started June 7 or a new lightning-caused fire that started last weekend at Big Creek, about 115 km northwest of Mackenzie, is the suspected source of the smoke that enveloped the city earlier Tuesday.
“It’s most likely going to be due to one of our newer fires," said BC Wildfire Service Prince George Fire Centre fire information officer Davin Richmond.
“We do have two significant wildfires on the landscape. One of the newer fires we picked up over the weekend, G50892, is about 6,849 hectares right now, kind of near the Nation Lakes chain. That’s one kicking smoke down towards us, but we have a very large number of wildfires on the landscape and we are seeing smoke from the Big Creek wildfire (in Omineca Provincial Park) on the west side of Williston Lake, which is just about 30,000 hectares.”
From Thursday afternoon through Sunday, Richmond said there were an estimated 11,000 lightning strikes. That caused 26 of the 32 new fires over the weekend in the Prince George Fire Centre, which encompasses most of northeastern B.C. It’s an area of 31.8 million hectares and of that total, 939,000 hectares has burnt since the fire season started on April 1.
There are now 57 wildfires burning in the P.G. Fire Centre, 36 of which are out of control.
“There’s nothing immediately threatening our major communities, it's just lots of smoke being kicked up by our wildfires right cross the landscape. Our public map is getting a little clustered with red dots.”
All open burning, including campfires, is prohibited in the Prince George Fire Centre.
