The Regional District of Nanaimo has issued a new evacuation alert for properties near the Wesley Ridge forest fire on the island of Vancouver.
The last alert, which adds to an existing one and is expected that residents are ready to leave at any time, affects the directions in three paths in the area.
Wesley Ridge’s fire was discovered on Thursday, according to BC Wildfire Service (BCWS), and is burning on the banks of northern Cameron Lake, about 50 kilometers northwest of Nanaimo, BC
The Regional District said it would update the public with the new number of properties affected at a press conference before Tuesday.
On Monday, the district said that 387 properties were affected by an evacuation order, which requires residents to go immediately. Another 235 properties, not including the new alert issued Monday night, were affected by an evacuation alert.
According to the last update of the Forest Fire Service on Monday morning, the Wesley Ridge fire remained in 511 hectares of size.
Rory Colwell, a fire behavior analyst with BCWs, said in a communications video on Monday that the area shows evidence of drought.
He said that the “accumulation index” of fuels that are available to burn is approximately 150 percent of what would be normal at this time of year.
“You can see how dry and crunchy is the ground,” said Colwell. “Some of the records … They are as low as 10 or 12 percent moisture content, and dry wood per oven is approximately eight percent.”
“We are obtaining total consumption of this, and it is causing fuels and fire to spread in areas and so we would not normally see.”
At a press conference on Monday, fire information officer Madison Dahl emphasized the need for rain.
“We are not having very high temperatures, and we expect a bit of precipitation, but we are still seeing very dry conditions here on the coast and on the island of Vancouver,” he said.
“It will take a lot of rain to substantially reduce the behavior of the fire we are seeing.”
Dahl also said that the BCWS plane needs space to collect water safely and quickly to combat the fire, and asked navigators to respect that.
“If there are planes nearby, move to the shore. Stay out of your way,” he said.
The smoke of the forest fire is expected to cause poor air quality and a reduced visibility around the center east of Vancouver Island, according to the meteorological information of the Canada government.
It is suspected that Wesley Ridge’s fire is caused by humans, a categorization given to any forest fire that is not caused by lightning.
More than 130 forest fires are burning in BC
