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Wildfire burning near Ashcroft showing 'intense fire behaviour' on southern flank

Tremont 'intense' to south

A wildfire threatening hundreds of homes in the Ashcroft area is showing aggressive fire behaviour on Monday, officials say.

The Tremont Creek fire is burning between Ashcroft and Walhachin. It covers an estimated 12,061 hectares as of Monday afternoon.

BC Wildfire Service fire information officer Forrest Tower said the intense activity has been on the south side of the fire’s perimeter.

“It’s very active on the southern flank right now,” Tower told Castanet.

“The entire southern flank basically is where we’re seeing fire activity. We had to pull our crews back to safety zones a bit earlier today.”

Tower said warm and clear conditions are making for increased fire activity, and temperatures are expected to rise throughout the week, reaching 37 C by the weekend.

“With the smoke clearing and the higher temperatures, we’re just seeing it kind of getting back up into that pretty intense fire behaviour,” he said.

“All along the north of the fire, from Barnes Lake around to the eastern side, it’s not active at all. It’s just kind of from Barnes Lake south around that entire perimeter is what is still pretty active.”

Last week, the Tremont Creek fire was very active to the north and northeast, pushing toward Walhachin.

Tower said crews will continue to work on guards to the south of the blaze.

“They’re doing what they can to build machine guard around it,” he said.

“It really is just kind of corralling the fire where we would like it to go at this point. We’re not really direct attacking it like we have the last few days.”

This story will be updated as more information becomes known.



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