“We’ve had lots of rain. It has definitely cooled off and wetted up.”
That was how Jim Jones, forest protection officer at Clearwater Fire Zone, described the recent weather.
Rainfall of 11.8 mm on Saturday and another 4.6 mm on Sunday meant that, as of Monday, the 30 ha West Adams fire was fully contained and probably 80 per cent mopped up.
A 20-person unit crew had been deployed to fight the fire, which was threatening nearby houses.
Thompson-Nicola Regional District issued an evacuation alert to six properties near the fire on Tuesday, July 21. The alert was lifted on Thursday afternoon, July 23.
A scan to detect hot spots was planned for Tuesday. If that proved negative, the plan was to have the firefighters off of the fire on Wednesday, Jones said.
The West Adams fire was located a few kilometers north of the north end of Adams Lake near the West Adams forest service road.
Before the rain came it had been a busy time at Clearwater Fire Zone, Jones said.
In addition to the two Initial Attack (three-person) crews normally stationed in the fire zone, six more IA crews were brought in to deal with numerous, mostly small fires that had been ignited during an active lightning storm the weekend before last.
Before last weekend, all of those fires were out, except for one at 12 km on the east side of Mad River north of Vavenby. That fire was declared out on Saturday.
Despite the rain, the weather is expected to warm up again and so the campfire ban remains in place, Jones said.
The first two weeks of August are historically the busiest time for the Clearwater Fire Zone.
“If we can get through that, we should be good,” the forest protection officer said.
