B.C. Wildfire Service map<\/a>.<\/p>\nVideos posted on social media show a helicopter flying near the wildfire. The cause of the fire is under investigation.<\/p>\n
Mayor Maja Tait said that as the fire is happening in the Juan de Fuca Electoral Area, B.C. Wildfire Service is leading the response, with Sooke Fire Rescue ready to support if needed.<\/p>\n
Tait said that she was hoping that Sooke would be spared from wildfires this year, given the early summer rains combined with a later-than-usual campfire ban, but it appears that it won\u2019t be the case.<\/p>\n
A wildfire near the Sooke Potholes burned for\u00a0102 days in 2024, scorching\u00a0230 hectares in steep terrain in the Sea to Sea Regional Park, not far from Greater Victoria\u2019s main water supply.<\/p>\n
The B.C. Wildfire Service is also battling a second fire in\u00a0the capital region. The blaze inside Goldstream Provincial Park was being held on Friday, meaning that it was\u00a0not expected to spread beyond its current perimeter.<\/p>\n
Tsawout First Nation, which has a reserve in the area shared with other W\u0331S\u00c1NE\u0106 nations, announced that it is temporarily closing its vehicle gates at Goldstream due to the risk of fire and environmental pollution.<\/p>\n
The nation said in a social media post that it is securing the reserve after several cases of trespassing were discovered.<\/p>\n
W\u0331S\u00c1NE\u0106 nation members will still be able to access the reserve by foot, Tsawout said.<\/p>\n
Five other fires were burning on Vancouver Island on Friday afternoon, including\u00a0one near Shawnigan Lake that was being held.<\/p>\n
Fire-information officer Erika Berg said a helicopter was deployed to drop water on the fires near Shawnigan Lake and in Goldstream.<\/p>\n
Crews remained\u00a0onsite on Friday to patrol and conduct mop-up operations after a \u201cgenerally successful\u201d initial attack, she said in an interview.<\/p>\n
B.C. Wildfire Service worked closely with Langford Fire Rescue on the Goldstream fire, Berg said.<\/p>\n
Berg said the lightning storm produced 63 recorded strikes, mostly in the south Island, and that the fire at Goldstream is likely to be caused by lightning. As of Friday, the cause of the fire was listed as \u201cundetermined\u201d by the B.C. Wildfire Service.<\/p>\n
Prospector\u2019s Trail was closed to public access while firefighting efforts are underway, but the rest of the park remains open.<\/p>\n
Four of the fires are west of Campbell River. Three are burning out of control, including one north of Kaipit Lake, southwest of Woss, that was discovered on Tuesday. It is estimated at 6.3 hectares, or 63,000 square metres, up from 4.75 hectares on Thursday.<\/p>\n
A fire at the north end of\u00a0Strathcona Park remained out of control on Friday afternoon. The park was open to visitors on Friday.<\/p>\n
A blaze that had been burning on the western outskirts of Port Alberni was considered out on Friday.<\/p>\n
Berg said wildfires on Vancouver Island are generally more likely to have been caused by human activity than in other parts of the province, with about 60 per cent of all Island wildfires typically caused by human activity, as opposed to 40 per cent elsewhere.<\/p>\n
The B.C. Wildfire Service said Friday\u2019s hot and dry conditions with gusting winds could result in continued growth of existing wildfires and contribute to quick growth of any new wildfires.<\/p>\n
However, the Island will have a bit of reprieve with a downturn in temperatures starting Saturday and continuing until at least Tuesday, Berg said. \u201cHopefully, it will also stretch a little bit more east to our partners on the mainland.\u201d<\/p>\n
[email\u00a0protected]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The cause of wildfires in Goldstream Park and north of Sooke are still under investigation. A wildfire near…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":824562,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194298],"tags":[49,48,55],"class_list":["post-824561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-vancouver","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-vancouver"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=824561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/824562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=824561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=824561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=824561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}