BC Wildfire Service reports one fire ‘out,’ another merged in northeast B.C.

FORT ST. JOHN, B.C. — The province’s wildfire authority has declared one of the larger fires in northeast B.C. to be ‘out’ and another to have merged with a nearby blaze, according to its latest update.

The BC Wildfire Service (BCWS) has classified fires in the Pesh Creek area, northeast of Kotcho Lake and east of Fort Nelson straddling the Alberta border, and in the Delkpay Creek area as ‘out.’

However, fire information officer with the BCWS, Paula Walbauer, confirmed to Energeticcity.ca the Pesh Creek blaze has merged with the Shekilie River fire.

This has caused the Shekilie River incident to grow from 73,024 hectares to 73,879.27 hectares. The suspected cause of the fire is believed to be lightning.

The Delkpay Creek fire, meanwhile, was a “spot fire” according to Walbauer, with an estimated crew of 20 battling the flames.

“We had done scans on it and crews had gone out to extinguish the last of that fire,” said Walbauer. “We’ve had clean scans so we were able to call that fire ‘out.'”

Both the ‘out’ blazes were ‘overwintering’ fires from previous seasons which smouldered over the winter underground. BCWS said “suppression efforts were taken to limit the spread of [these] wildfires.”

Energeticcity.ca will provide further information for this story should it become available. 

Check the wildfire update page for the latest details.