Yesterday, the Regional District of East Kootenay removed some homes in the St. Mary Valley from the Evacuation Order changing them to alert status, although 25 properties on the lake itself remain under Order.
Incident Command’s latest update says all containment lines continue to hold on the northeast corner of the fire and there has been no further encroachment toward the St. Mary Lake community. The fire continues to be classified as out of control.
A new incident command team from Alberta was scheduled to take over on Wednesday at noon.
Yesterday heavy equipment completed a line on Fiddler Creek to tie into the rock bluff. Today’s objectives will be much the same as yesterday. Crews will continue 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. Today will also be a transition day between ground crews, thus the higher number of firefighting personnel. There are currently crews from BC and New Zealand working on the fire.
There are 30 firefighting personnel, four helicopters and five pieces of heavy equipment on the fire.
About one and a half kilometres south of the Meachen Creek fire is the Mount Dickson Fire, which is 1997 hectares in size. This fire is being monitored and no ground resources have yet been assigned. Four helicopters are signed to this fire.
Weather for the next few days is for slightly below seasonal temperatures, with humidity values dropping into the 20 to 30 per cent range. Moderate to strong winds are expected, with gusts doubling the wind speed of 20 to 30 km/hour.
The command team anticipates a return to active fire behaviour in the afternoon.
“On level terrain, moderately slow rates of rates are expected however with the fuel available to burn, predicted head intensity is at or just above the capabilities of ground resources. When accounting for slope, moderately fast rates of spread should be expected with predicted head intensity beyond the capabilities of ground resources and flank intensity at the upper limit. With the potential for stronger winds developing through the afternoon, rates of spread and intensity may exceed predicted values.”