The use of controlled burning has "substantially reduced" the dangers facing the town of Lillooet, B.C., where a raging wildfire has caused the evacuation of hundreds of residents in recent days.
Garry Horley, a fire information officer in the District of Lillooet, said fire crews had made progress in fighting back the blaze, which had come within one kilometre of the town limits as of late Tuesday.
"The controlled burns that we carried out yesterday and the day before have removed all of the fuels from the hillside above the town of Lillooet," he told CTV News Channel in a telephone interview on Wednesday morning. "The danger to the community here is substantially reduced."
But fire officials in B.C. were quietly optimistic Wednesday, as cooler weather has substantially decreased the number of new fires in the province and there were not any new evacuation orders in the last 24 hours.
While new fires have started up at a rate of about 100 a day recently, on Tuesday only 50 new ones were counted by officials.
Day by day, firefighters have sought to bring the Mount McLean blaze under control, as it moved closer to Lillooet. It now sits about a kilometre away from the town and is still zero per cent contained.
The fire has raged on steep terrain that has made it difficult for firefighters to tame.
According to the B.C. Ministry of Forests and Range website, the fire was estimated at being about 36 square kilometres, but some of that includes the controlled fires. It was first discovered on July 22.
Fire crews have also been watering down houses that are in the direct path of the Mount McLean blaze. And they have been using helicopters to dump water on hotspots.
The majority of Lillooet's 2,500 residents have been evacuated from the town, located about 170 kilometres west of Kamloops, B.C.
Carmen Pallot, a municipal councillor in Lillooet, said the fire has posed a challenge for local authorities, who have dealt with other major fires in previous years.
"This time seems to be really different as far as the fire activity and just how it's so hard to predict," Pallot told CTV's Canada AM during a phone interview from Lillooet on Wednesday morning. "I think they're having a challenging time."
Pallot said local authorities meet twice a day to assess the current fire conditions.
B.C. is currently dealing with more than 800 wildfires, part of the 2,000 that have plagued the province so far this year.
The province has had to import firefighters from other parts of Canada, as well as from Australia and New Zealand.
Canadian Forest Service research scientist Steve Taylor said a long period of hot weather has created serious fire dangers for much of B.C.
With files from CTV's Canada AM, CTV's Lisa Rossington and The Canadian Press
