The BC Wildfire Service is explaining what went into its decision to let a small wildfire burn unattended this week along the Coquihalla Highway — a blaze that exploded in size on Wednesday and forced the closure of the highway, now covering an estimated 19 square kilometres.
The Mine Creek wildfire started with a lightning strike deep in the woods on Monday, and it exploded on Wednesday afternoon. It is the largest wildfire to spark in the Kamloops Fire Centre in recent weeks, its rapid growth fuelled by record high temperatures and long, dry days.
On Tuesday, BC Wildfire Service officials opted to let the Mine Creek fire burn. They told Castanet that decision was made because a number of roads in the area are washed out from flooding in 2021, making the area inaccessible for crews.
As flames loomed over the Coquihalla Highway on Wednesday, travellers took to social media to express concerns about the apparent lack of effort to battle the blaze back, posting photos of the fire and questioning the lack of a response from BCWS.
The highway was closed shortly after the fire jumped its four lanes on Wednesday afternoon, and it remained closed as of 3 p.m. on Thursday.
Crew safety top of mind
Fire information officer Taylor Stewart Shantz is well aware of the criticism aimed at the decision to let the Mine Creek fire burn, but she said it was made with safety top of mind.
“In this specific case, this was a suspected lightning caused fire high in the alpine that presented a number of challenges,” she said.
“First of all would be accessibility — while there are roads in the area, the bridges that lead to those roads have washed out from floods of previous years, so there was no road access to allow crews access and egress to this incident when it first started.”
The second concern was the steep and rocky slopes on which the fire was initially burning.
“It was a safety concern for us to take crews into that area given the size of the fire by the time it was discovered, the fire behaviour and the fact that we weren't going to be able to provide safe egress if something were to change on that incident,” Stewart Shantz said.
As for whether air support could have made a difference, she said there are some common misconceptions on that front.
“Aircraft don't put out fires, people put out fires," she said. "You can put a down little bit of water, you can lay down a strip of retardant, but that's not going to hold the fire back over the long term."
Stewart Shantz said the volume of water needed to put out a fire like the one burning at Mine Creek is not feasible for aerial attack.
“So it becomes inoperable from an air standpoint, as well," she said. "You could use those resources, but it wouldn't attain any of the objectives that we were looking for.”
Decision was 'challenging'
Speaking hypothetically, Thompson Rivers University wildfire expert and research chair Mike Flannigan said a modified response could involve both direct and indirect methods of attack or monitoring.
“It means that part of the fire can be directly suppressed, attacked, another part can be watching or monitoring,” he said.
“Sometimes they try and steer fires with fire management activities like water bombers dropping retardant to try and guide it to a different part, away from something of value.”
Flannigan said allowing the fire to burn into areas with low fuels can be beneficial, as well. But if the blaze grows large, it can have unexpected impacts.
He said choosing to use a full, modified or monitored response can depend on the time of year, the intensity of the fire, the amount of available resources and the location — especially if it's near communities or critical infrastructure, like hydro lines or highways.
“These are challenging decisions, especially if you've got a number of fires on the go, you kind of have to prioritize which ones you want full on suppression,” he said.
“In general, major highways, power lines or critical infrastructure are often full response when a fire is close.”
Whichever kind of response is used, Flannigan said crews on the ground are needed to douse the fire.
“The boots on the ground put the fire out, that's why you need boots on all fires that you want to suppress,” Flannigan said. “Aircraft, helicopters, retardant, water — they buy you time.”
Winds shifted, response changed
For a couple of days, the modified response was a fine enough tack.
The fire was burning away from the Coquihalla and into territory already ravaged by wildfire in 2021, and homes were not at risk. Had they been, Stewart Shantz said BCWS officials would have chosen a different path.
“We were flying [over] it multiple times a day, assessing its behaviour, its change of direction and whatever was happening on it,” she said. “Also, we had a helicopter equipped with night vision that was monitoring it at night.”
Then there was a shift in wind Stewart Shantz said was “relatively un-forecast.”
“We were expecting the heat, but the direction of the wind and the speed of the wind was not totally forecast for the day,” she said.
That’s when the approach to the fire fight changed.
“As soon as it started to head toward the highway, that's when you started to see the crews, the aerial resources and structure protection units being brought in,” Stewart Shantz said.
“Our response did change, because those were objectives that we could action.”
