On Sunday, August 20th, the central part of the province saw some scattered showers. Kevin Skrepnek of the BC Wildfire Service reported that Williams Lake is seeing a gray and dreary day, which is “not entirely unwelcome from a wildfire perspective.”
“Certainly a number of fires did see at least a little bit of rain in some areas,” says Skrepnek.
“By no means has this rain done much to alleviate our situation right now,” he adds. “We don't want people to get complacent. There has been no change in terms of our restrictions across the province.”
Despite the bit of rain some areas saw this morning, Skrepnek warns that they are expecting a small ridge of high pressure to build over southern B.C., which will likely result in some unstable weather.
Wednesday and Thursday this week are expected to be active days weather wise due to a cold front that will bring increased winds and potential for thundershowers.
Skrepnek says it is unclear how much rain we will see, or how far the rain will reach.
He also said that August 18th to 19th did not bring the weather fire officials were bracing themselves for, and they “dodged a bit of a bullet.”
“This being weather, that forecast is going to evolve on a daily basis... We are looking at that as our next challenging period, of course, with wind being such a critical factor on these fires already,” said Skrepnek.
