Officials from the City of Williams Lake, the Cariboo Regional District and the BC Wildfire Service hosted a public meeting Tuesday afternoon which offered some hopeful news on local wildfires.
Glen Burgess of the BC Forest Service said he was optimistic about the progress made on the 150 Mile fire, particularly in the residential areas. He also said that crews made great progress on a fire break to protect the city from a wildfire that officials were afraid would jump the Fraser River and threaten Williams Lake.
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“The only fire west of the Fraser River is zero per cent contained officially. I can tell you we have made great progress on that fire. Tolko has provided us with an untold amount of resources. We have bulldozers working on that fire 24/7 hours a day as we speak. They’re building a lot of line and we do have burn-off operations planned there”
“We’re hoping that tomorrow we’ll be able to publicly announce a certain level of containment. I can tell you at this time we don’t feel there is a threat to jump the river. Anything’s possible but we’ve made good progress.
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The City of Williams lake and portions of the Cariboo RD are still under an evacuation alert. Several businesses in the community did close up shop following the evacuation alert as staff made decisions to leave the community which is suffering poor air quality due to the smoke.”
WATCH: BC Forest Service provides updates on fires near Williams Lake