The Meachen Creek fire continues to be classified as Out of Control despite receiving some rain over Sunday evening. BC Wildfire Service reports that 2.6 mm fell on the station at the fire; 7 mm was recorded at the station south of the fire; and 3.8 at the station north of it.
While these amounts were most welcome by those fighting the fire, and will create good fire fighting conditions, drought conditions remain the same.
Crews have been concentrating on the Fiddler Creek area, where the fire has been quite active. On Sunday, the fire burned up the mountain ridge into the rock face, preferable to it burning down into the valley, according to BC Wildfire Service.
It is estimated that this excursion totals 75 hectares. All containment lines have held in the northeast corner and fire behaviour has been moderate. There has been no further encroachment towards the St. Mary Lake community. Today heavy equipment will be used to put in line on Fiddler Creek in order to tie into the rock bluff and to put a tight line on the excursion across Fiddler Creek. Crews will begin establishing hose lines around the excursion. When safe to do so, helicopters with buckets will be used to support the suppression efforts. Crews will monitor the spine in the northeast corner and bucket hot spots as required. Maintenance will continue on the structural protection equipment in zones 1 and 2.
The fire was last mapped on August 22 and it has been too smokey to create a new perimeter map.
According to the Incident Command Team, there has been no further encroachment towards the St. Mary Lake community.
Today heavy equipment will be used to put in line on Fiddler Creek in order to tie into the rock bluff and to put a tight line on the excursion across Fiddler Creek. Crews will begin establishing hose lines around the excursion. When safe to do so, helicopters with buckets will be used to support the suppression efforts. Crews will monitor the spine in the northeast corner and bucket hot spots as required. Maintenance will continue on the structural protection equipment in zones 1 and 2.
Incident Command expects that in the areas where precipitation was received, the resulting fire behaviour is expected to be a smouldering surface fire with minimal rates of spread. In the areas where there was no precipitation, slow to moderately fast rates of spread should be expected on slope, wind or fuel driven fires. With the absence of precipitation, the more volatile fuel types will continue to exhibit torching to intermittent crown fire behaviour.