Update: Vehicles, out buildings burned in wildfire near Peachland

The planned ignition event to bring together two wildfires near Peachland was successful, said Glen Burgess, incident commander with the BC Wildfire Service, at a press conference in Peachland this afternoon.

Crews are now working to extinguish hot spots for the Mount Eneas wildfire, located south of Peachland, he said.

On July 22, wildfire crews dropped ping-pong ball sized balls filled with chemicals to merge the Mount Eneas and Munco fires.

“We’re extremely happy with the outcome and results,” Burgess said.

No primary residences have been destroyed or burned, but there have been some reports of destroyed out buildings, and some vehicles were affected along the Highway 97 corridor earlier in the week, he said.

The Mount Eneas wildfire is currently mapped at 1,789 hectares and wildfire crews don’t anticipate further growth.

Crews are now working on the back side of the fire, he said. “While the fire still remains out of control, we’re not anticipating further growth.”

Night crews will now be monitoring the fire in priority areas, alongside crews with the Peachland Fire Department.

Mount Eneas still out of control but not anticipating any growth. Lots of resources on scene, no down sizing. Night crews on site as well. #peachland fire crews on scene. No problems last night @BCGovFireInfo pic.twitter.com/611JtJWfDn

— Jen Zielinski (@Jen_zee) July 24, 2018

The Okanagan Mountain Park fires continue to put up the most amount of smoke in the area, Burgess said.

Three fires continue to burn in the Okanagan Mountain Park area, and Burgess said the terrain makes it difficult for wildfire crews to fight the fires.

“With small crevices, gullies, crags that are filled with vegetation and debris, that’s where it’s burning and we can’t put crews into those gullies,” he said.

They also can’t establish a control line as the fire is burning on bare rock, he said. The majority of growth on the fires have been up the slope.

Those fires are located near Narmata outside of the park, one small fire inside the park and the one named Goode’s Creek, which is 577 hectares in size.

The concern for this week is another lightning event with wind, he added.