#PortAlberni Arbutus Fire update. Crews have worked hard today to develop guards along the sides of the fire. The Incident Commander is planning to do a control burn to strengthen those guards (if conditions are favourable). Increased activity on the fire may be visible.
— Alberni-Clayoquot RD (@ACRDgov) August 11, 2018
#PortAlberni Wildfire Update. Arbutus Ridge Fire 25 ha’s in size. 33 firefighters, 2 helicopters, & 6 pieces of heavy equipment working this fire. Beaver Creek, Cherry Creek, & Sproat Lake Volunteer Fire Depts working on Beaufort Fire. NO fire @ Yellow River (near Mt. Arrowsmith)
— Alberni-Clayoquot RD (@ACRDgov) August 11, 2018
It was quite a night last night. The Arbutus Ridge fire glowed prominently over the city and provided quite a show. The picture below was taken through the binoculars at Harbour Quay.
The fire has grown to 20 hectares and is now a Fire of Note on BCWS. The good news about that is we should get some more information on it and they will be working on it through the day.
Here is the latest from the City:
WILDFIRE UPDATE:
City of Port Alberni Facebook Aug 11, 2018 9:15AM
@BCWildfireService is working on today’s operational plans for the local wildfire attacks. Information available at this time indicates the #LacyLake fire in the Beaufort Range was quiet through the night.
The #ArbutusRidge fire was active through the night and has been listed at 20+ hectares as of this morning.
We will be posting further details on the local wildfire activity throughout the day.
PortAlberni #BCWildFires
The Beaufort fire (in yellow above) is listed at 10 Hectares and is said to be 80% contained. There is a new fire listed at Yellow Creek. The fire at Yellow Creek was not found and will be removed from the maps shortly. Thankfully the cool and hopefully moist weather today should prevent it from getting too active so hopefully crew will be able to take care of that fire quickly.
Smoke Advisory
Clouds have obviously invaded the region. Environment Canada has issued an Air Quality Statement due to the wildfire smoke in the general area but there is no advisory at this time. However, Arbutus is causing a signfiicant amount of smoke in some areas so please do take care.
Weather – Light sprinkles possible In Port Alberni – Heavier spotty rain with thunderstorm on East side.
Some light showers are now slated to move in later this morning. See the images below to see how the showers are expected to move through just to the south of us mostly from about 10AM and then concentrate on the East side until about 4PM.
There is already Thunderstorm activity on the east side of the Island this morning but thankfully nothing more. I expect that might travel further south into the Nanaimo region later today but we should not see or hear it in Port Alberni.
The chance for showers will end today and Sunday will start to clear again and warm back up into Monday when we are back to sunny skies and hot temperatures.
Take care out there, stay out of the backcountry and thank a firefighter. ? ❤️
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