Past updates

Looking pretty good here this morning. We had a briefing early yesterday afternoon with the Incident Commander, Structure Protection and the new Australian Community Communications person, to discuss next steps with the fire encroaching on the range in the Texas Creek basin. We're supposed to be taking the cattle up there next week, so we're obviously pretty concerned about access. It doesn't sound like they're going to do much, as they don't feel they can get crews in there safely. It would have been nice to have this communications person a couple of weeks ago, but hopefully now she can take some of the burden off Tristan, who has been spending many hours of incredibly valuable time sourcing, ground-truthing and disseminating much-needed information to the wider community. After the briefing we headed up to complete repairs on the flume. We found our work area easily, as it was clearly marked with yellow flagging tape that said "No Work Zone." Tristan carried on with the braces while I cleared the endless supply of fuels from under the flume, then whittled little cedar sticks to jam into the gaps in the new section — which was actually quite relaxing. Or it would have been, if there hadn't been a loud-ass pump droning away the whole time. We got the flume running again at 6:05pm. Very satisfying, considering that only three days ago it looked like the whole thing was going to burn. Early dinner at 7:30 (yes, we had pizza again, but we ALSO had a box of freezer chicken fettuccine alfredo), with lightning alerts popping up on my phone and the wind picking up. We were feeling relatively good, though, since we knew the whole area from Spray Creek to Cat Creek was pretty much finished burning and under control. For the first time in a long while we didn't have to go out and deal with any emergencies, and we got to sleep at a reasonable hour for a change. This morning I went out to take a peek up Texas Creek and was happy to see everything looking very mellow. At the morning briefing we learned that the burn is indeed finished, with no spots within 25 feet of the control line the whole way from Cat Creek to Spray Creek. It sounds like we'll have full crews on 24 hours for at least two more days, and they expect to have a drone scanning tonight. After that we went up in the helicopter to assess the range, so we can make some decisions about taking the cows up next week. It seems highly unlikely the fire will make it that far back any time soon, if at all — access is the real issue, since to get in or out we need to travel the Texas Creek FSR. It was great to see the range from the air; it'll help me orient myself on the ground in future. It sure is beautiful up there, saw a cool bear den, and we got out of the smoke for the first time in ages. On the weather: today is warm and breezy — around 27°C, humidity down near 35%, and northwest gusts up to 40 km/h through the afternoon. That's the wind shift we'd been watching all week, but it's arriving with the burn already down to the line here, which is very much the order you'd want those two things to happen in. Thursday and Friday look similar and a little calmer. The weekend is the part worth keeping an eye on. Saturday through Monday warm up to 30–31°C with humidity dropping to somewhere around 18–25%, and no rain in the forecast. That's the first stretch in a while where the humidity is expected to fall below the temperature, which is the combination that can wake up interior pockets in a fire that's otherwise lying down. There are also a few hours of possible dry lightning over the next two days — which is what those alerts on my phone were about. Riley Creek is now listed at 2,600 hectares. We expect the order to be lifted tonight, so unless anything changes here, this will probably be my last briefing update. I may have to shift my attention to the Ainslie Creek fire now, which is still growing and moving towards my property, where we remain on alert. It's now at 61,399 hectares — it added close to 13,000 hectares in the last day alone. The alert was expanded yesterday to include the south side of the Coquihalla, as there's significant activity on that fire's southern leading edge. I'll drop a screenshot of that fire on my map below; the yellow house icon is my place. It's still a ways away — we're about 4 km from the evacuation order boundary. All the livestock are gone, and what little else I care about is packed and ready to go. Time to regroup and get a handle on everything I've been ignoring for the past three weeks. Apparently the rest of the province is on fire too, and I have a lot of office work to catch up on. Thanks to all of you who have been checking in — it was nice to know you were all cheering for us. :)

I'm sorry I haven't had a chance to update this dashboard since Sunday morning. I feel like I'm constantly repeating myself, but things have been pretty busy here. After I posted Sunday's briefing I went back out to finish chores and take a look at the guard line above the field where most of the livestock are. There had been a lot of rolldown activity there the night before, so I wanted to make sure there weren't any spot fires that could become an issue. Everything was looking really good, with the burn right down to the guard line. There were some danger trees threatening the mainline, so an awesome team of fallers was on site, and Tristan helped them protect the mainline so they could fall the trees. I went back to pick up where I'd left off on livestock chores when I saw a big plume go up over by Cat Creek, so I abandoned my mission and went to check it out. It turned out to be a planned ignition to bring the fire down to the guard, and everything was under control. The leadership team called that one a textbook burn. I had the chance to talk reclamation with the Incident Commander, who happens to be both an RPF and a PAg, so he really understands the importance of getting seed down as soon as possible on these disturbed areas. I've since asked that we be included in those conversations — apparently a restoration specialist is coming out this week. Around 7:00pm we heard that Spray Creek was no longer running, most likely due to a slide, which was later confirmed by helicopter. That's one of the ranch's two water sources — the other being Cat Creek, via the flume — and both of them feed the firefighting and structure protection operations. Five minutes later, we lost the flume. We'd known that was coming. After the fire came through and our firefighting extravaganza at the flume on Saturday, we were well aware we were far from out of the woods. Several trees were still burning that we hadn't been able to extinguish, and it was only a matter of time before one of them fell and took out the structure. We figured that might be two hours or two months. It turned out to be about a day: one of the big cedars came down and destroyed a large section, completely cutting off the intake. We raced up to assess. BCWS wasn't permitted to operate in the area because of the danger tree risk. The contingency for structure protection on the reserve had been a big tank of water, so we went to connect a line to it — only to find the tank had been drained and moved elsewhere. So at 9pm we were still out there rigging another way to get water down to the reserve. After that we went to check the Spray Creek intake, and were incredibly happy to find the creek had broken through the obstruction, blown a lot of debris out on the way down, and was now flowing better than before. We sure needed a win. It was very good to be able to shower and know the livestock had water. We hit a new nutritional low that night. Saturday we'd had a slice of leftover pizza. Sunday we had the partially cooked pizza I'd put in the oven the night before — thinking we should probably eat more than one slice for dinner — and then had to pull out half-baked because we got called out to an emergency. It had been sitting in the fridge ever since. That was dinner. After two nights of three hours' sleep we were definitely not firing on all cylinders, but there was a lot to do Monday. Thankfully one staff member was back on at the ranch, so I was relieved of chore duty and could return to my primary role as Tristan's sidekick / emotional support animal / sounding board / plumbing, construction, structure protection and firefighting assistant. We agreed to be extra careful, because it was starting to feel like a prime day to do something stupid and get hurt. We went up to the flume with the fallers. While Tristan and the fallers worked on the danger trees, I started clearing hoses — now useless without the flume — and putting out spot fires by bucketing straight out of the creek. Pretty low tech at this point, but I wanted to stay out of the fallers' way and get the obvious flames near the flume knocked down. They got all but one of the bad trees down. The one left is a very large fir that can't be felled without destroying the flume. I had a good chat with the fallers this morning and they explained that the tap root on that fir is probably incredibly strong, and that firs are built to burn and tend to hold up really well. They'd bucketed it with the helicopter and it hadn't fazed it, so it sounds fairly low risk. Fingers crossed. The bigger risk now is rockfall, and there's nothing we can do about that. It's been nonstop, and it will be a real hazard for at least a couple of years. With the flume area relatively safe, Immian, Tristan and I headed up to start rebuilding the destroyed section. We were delighted when the Lytton Rattlers crew enthusiastically pitched in to help clear the cedar debris. That was a BIG tree, and it looked even bigger sitting in a pile at our feet, so we were very happy to have five strong helpers with tools to make short work of it. Once it was clear, Immian and Tristan got to work and I went back for more lumber and nails. We made good progress, and hope to have it finished today. Immian took a tumble firefighting on Saturday and has been super stoic about it, but he has some quite serious burns on his hand, arm and head. He was in contact with the ground for barely a second, and it was hot enough to do that much damage. That dude is tough. I'm very grateful we've had no other injuries, and that Immian wasn't hurt worse. We thought we were wrapping up for the night — we had plans for a better pizza and an early bed — but the universe had other ideas. Things started getting spicy over towards Texas Creek, so we headed out to see what was going on. There was a one-acre spot fire burning across the guard on the saddle above the livestock field, which was a bit concerning; the crews got on it and held it. Helicopters were still working, later than they usually shut down. We drove out a little way and saw the fire had burned right down to the guard on Texas Creek Road. We went back to eat our good pizza and move the dairy cow. We'd just said goodnight and I was heading back to my RV when the call came in — they needed Tristan to operate the dip tank for night-ops helicopters they were bringing in. It was 10:45 by then. Delta Wildfire had been running that tank until yesterday, and since the fire has moved along they'd gone back to bucketing out of the river, so Delta had given Tristan a very brief overview in case it was needed again. Tristan had given BCWS a specific list of the information he'd need to run it at night. None of it was available when the call came. We went down and did our best to get it running, but in the end they realised they couldn't fly that big a machine in the narrow valley after dark and called it off — so we actually did get to bed just before midnight, and slept a glorious six hours and forty-five minutes according to my watch. Feeling more rested this morning, I went to the briefing at the staging area and left Tristan fielding calls from worried residents, because NASA FIRMS was showing hotspots on the south side of Texas Creek. BCWS confirms the fire has not crossed the creek — another reminder that the satellite data is a tip, not a verdict. The crews are very happy with the burn, which is now right down to the guard almost the whole way from Riley Creek to Texas Creek. The published fire size is still 2,360 hectares, unchanged since Sunday — and when it jumped to that number, that was the mapping catching up with steady growth rather than any blowup. The weather is genuinely helping. Today is around 24°C with the humidity holding near 50%, and it recovered well overnight — that combination is what keeps fire behaviour lazy. There's a chance of a few millimetres of rain, but the last two rain forecasts didn't deliver, so nobody's counting on it. Winds are light. Wednesday and Thursday cool off but bring a shift to northwest winds, gusting into the mid-30s. A new wind direction can push fire onto flanks that have been quiet all week, so it's worth watching even though it's cooler. Then it warms back up into the weekend — Saturday looks like 30°C with humidity down around 20%. That's the stretch where pockets of unburned fuel can wake up. Longer term, we're starting to look at what all this means for the operation. Between the drought, the disruption and the management decisions we've had to make, Aubyn and Tristan are looking hard at forage supply and considering destocking. Tristan has been an incredible resource and has shown excellent leadership — if not strong boundaries — for his community through all of this. His calm head and his commitment to accurate, timely communication have been instrumental in getting this ranch, BCWS and the whole community through this fire. Now I'm off to see if I can get him to stop helping people and come fix the flume with me.

I don't remember ever being so tired as when I woke up yesterday morning. I'm sure glad I took thirty quiet minutes to sip coffee and work on this briefing — because just as I hit the update button, all hell broke loose. If you read yesterday's update, you'll know that Tristan and I had been out very late, and that our last stop had been to check the intake and the flume at Cat Creek. There were rolldowns starting spot fires about 60 m from the intake. The flume (google it if you don't know what a flume is) is an absolutely critical piece of infrastructure here for delivering water to the ranch — but right now it is also providing structure protection to 14 homes and filling the helicopter dip tank. When we went to check on it, we saw that BCWFS had installed sprinklers along its length but hadn't turned them on. Turning them on was going to require a pump we didn't have, and it seemed unlikely that the fire would make it there in the three hours we were hoping to sleep if we went to bed right then. So we made the difficult decision to prioritize sleep. It was the wrong choice. Tristan had asked Immian, a neighbour, to bring the pump we needed in the morning, so the two of them headed up there first thing — and found the flume engulfed in flames. That's when I hit the update button on yesterday's briefing and rocketed up there as fast as I could. After a very quick briefing from Tristan, I shot back down to the staging area to summon the BCWFS crews, then raced back up and grabbed a hose. In the end it was primarily Tristan and Immian's quick thinking and excellent preparedness, along with help from Joe, Roman, Aubyn and me, that saved the flume. BCWFS helped a bit, but mostly continued working on the contingency line below us. I was very grateful to the ones who did pitch in, especially when they ran a hose for Joe and me from one of their more powerful pumps, which let us get a massive tree that was on fire under control. I have never fought a wildfire before, and this was all happening in very steep, very sketchy terrain — made ironically slippery by the fact that water leaks out of this ancient flume all along its length. There was fire on both sides of the flume, and it was very hot and very smoky for a while there. By the time we finally felt we had the situation under control, around 4:00pm, we were all exhausted, soaking wet and absolutely covered in soot and ash, with stinging eyes and aching lungs. We left a couple of sprinklers running down by a massive tree we hadn't been able to extinguish, and BCWFS promised to keep an eye on it. I still had the ranch chores to do, much of which was stuff I hadn't got to the day before, so I got cracking on that. The last thing I had to do was set up a new paddock for the cows, further away from the fire, and move them — which I did happily, while watching rolldowns start new fires at the edge of the field I was working in. I finished up chores just after 9:30 and regrouped with Tristan for our evening recon mission. I was very grateful to hear that there would be a crew from Birch Bay and Sooke with tenders (fire trucks) patrolling the control line all night, as well as BCWFS initial attack crews. There were two IA crews on site at the flume, and they assured us that everything was looking really good there and we could go to bed. Things were getting pretty spicy at the Spray Creek intake, and a rockslide had buried one of the BCWFS water lines, so we went up to deal with that and to decide whether we needed to work up there — but BCWFS seemed to have things under control. After a few more essential tasks, we were finally able to call it a night at midnight, after devouring two slices of leftover pizza. I forced myself to get in the shower, where I was overwhelmed with the disgusting smell of hot wet ash. I scrubbed my hair twice. Now I just smell like burned rosemary. Where things stand: the Riley Creek fire is now listed at 2,360 hectares, and we are still under evacuation order. The Ainslie Creek fire, which is marching towards my own place in Merritt, is now 48,537 hectares, and we remain on evacuation alert there. We continue to be lucky with the weather here at the ranch — but today is the tightest day of the week. It should reach about 30°C, with the humidity dropping to around 30% through the middle of the afternoon. That puts us right at the edge of what's called crossover: the point where the humidity number falls below the temperature number. It sounds like numerology, but it's a genuinely useful rule of thumb, because it's roughly where fine fuels — grass, needles, small dead branches — give up the last of their moisture and will carry fire readily. Gusts build from about 3pm and sit near 30 km/h into the early evening, out of the south-southwest. We had a little bit of wind last night with some embers flying, which was a sobering reminder of what could happen if conditions change. What's behind today matters just as much. Monday looks similar but a touch cooler. Tuesday looks genuinely wet — something like 7 mm of rain with humidity back above 50%, which would be the first real reprieve since this started, and enough to properly damp things down for a day or two. Then it turns again. Thursday is forecast at 28°C with humidity back near 30% and gusts up to 45 km/h, with the wind swinging round to the northwest. That combination is the one to watch: strong wind from a new direction can push a fire onto ground it hasn't touched yet, and push it along flanks that have been quiet all week. Nothing about that is a forecast of disaster — it's just the shape of the week, and the reason nobody here is relaxing yet. Lots of pictures below. Of course everything looks under control in the photos, because no one was taking photos when it was really interesting. Things are looking good this morning so far. They got the spot fires out along the field that I was worried about last night. Time to get back at it. Thanks to everyone who has been checking in. Your support is appreciated.

Yesterday was a big day, but a combination of luck with the weather and hard work is allowing us to keep defending the ranch. An evacuation order came into effect Friday at noon for properties between Riley Creek and Cat Creek. Tristan's family is staying in town, with Aubyn coming out each day to help — huge thanks to the friends who've taken on the kids to make that possible. Tristan and I are still here, looking after the livestock and the water systems. I admit I did not collect eggs yesterday. We had bigger priorities. Most of the day went to repairing a burst water main — what are the chances of that happening with a wildfire at the door? I'll give you a hint: what's a number greater than 99? It was definitely not on the list of things to do, but we still got irrigation onto the lower control line and the homestead sprinklers cranking. The homes and other buildings feel very well protected now. We had some anxious moments during that repair, when we realized how close the fire had crept and that the helicopters and ground crews were gone. Then suddenly everyone showed up — including two Sikorsky helicopters, a 92 and a 61, that were able to absolutely pound the leading edge that was encroaching on the ranch. They bucketed until nine at night. Two crews patrolled overnight and a thermal drone searched for hotspots in the dark. At dark o'clock we headed up to the edge of the fire to check on the Spray Creek intake, where we cleared as much fuel as we could to protect the infrastructure. There's a real risk of burning debris being funnelled down into that narrow canyon and putting the whole intake system at risk, so it was good to get done. Then we headed over to the Cat Creek intake and the flume, where the fire activity was quite a bit spicier. The crews have set up a sprinkler system to protect the flume, and the fire was still a little ways away from there, but we saw a fair bit of concerning rolldown above the intake and pond. It is hard not to be mesmerized by this fire, especially at night. On one hand it's alarming to see the whole mountain behind the ranch on fire; on the other, it's strangely beautiful. So far this fire is behaving like a well-mannered guest — consuming no more than it needs, and hopefully leaving the landscape in better condition than it found it, in the long run. Overnight it worked its way down the face between Cat Creek and Riley Creek. It's unsettlingly close to home, but it's backing slowly downhill rather than making any kind of wind-driven run, and the official size only ticked up modestly, to 1,288 hectares. For a fire burning into August after a spring this dry, this is close to the best case we could have hoped for. We had a late night and the usual early morning, so I'm feeling pretty fuzzy today. I can hear the fire crackling away behind me right now, and lots of debris and rockfall coming down — but I met up with the ground crews on my first lap this morning and everything seems under control. There's finally a break in the weather too: light winds, a chance of rain, and cooler, more humid days ahead. That calm air is the main reason this has stayed manageable. On my personal homefront, the Ainslie Creek fire is moving at a relatively quick pace. We've been on alert at home for a while now, and the order was expanded yesterday to just a few kilometres from the farm. All the livestock are gone, and Ludo has packed up what little I care about and is ready to go with the remaining dogs and cats. It's hard to get a sense of the real risk there from over here. It seems really far away by comparison, but it's a much bigger fire — and we saw in 2021 that a fire can travel from the Fraser Canyon to Merritt, so I can't dismiss the risk. For what it's worth, the numbers are more reassuring than the map looks: the fire's active edge is about 22 km out, the evacuation order boundary is 4 km from us, and between the two there's a 1,000 m ridge and the Nicola valley. The wind has been pushing it northeast, away from our line, in all but a handful of forecast hours. I'd better get back to it — another big day ahead of us. Thanks so much to all of you who are checking in. I pass your messages on to Tristan and Aubyn, and it means a lot to all of us.

I'm getting into a bit of a routine now. I'll upload photos when I go to bed, so the 6am briefing will have the photos — but I need to do morning livestock chores first thing, and it's nice to regroup and see what the fire is doing and write my update with coffee, so this section will usually get updated a little later. I'm always too busy to update it again before the 6pm update, so then you will probably only get the weather and conditions updates.

Wednesday was a pretty quiet day for fire activity but it did continue to make its way S and SE towards the ranch and into the Texas Creek basin. It was very smoky, which was bad news for our lungs and water — the water is undrinkable now unless you like the taste of the bottom of an ashtray — but good news for fire suppression. Smoke peaked at 96 ug/m3 PM2.5 around 7am, which lands in the "high" band. The high winds that had been forecasted did not materialize, although we continue to have extremely dry conditions and long periods of crossover (when relative humidity drops below the air temperature). Today's crossover window is 9 hours, 11am to 7pm. Last night got spicy. See photos below taken around 9pm and 3am. But so far it is staying up there and we aren't seeing flaming tree rockets coming down to the valley floor. Lots of rockfall last night though. Smoky and socked in again this morning with no wind, but that is expected to change. Our station read 17.7 C and 51% RH first thing — cooler and drier than the 25 km forecast grid had it, and not in crossover yet. Forecast is for 35 C today and tomorrow with some gusty SW winds and no rain — the model confirms 35 both days and zero rain, though it only has gusts at 26 km/h today and 39 tomorrow, both under the 50 km/h mark where embers start travelling. Worth taking with a grain of salt given the winds it promised earlier this week never showed up. Tomorrow looks like the sharper day: minimum humidity down to 20% with the stronger gusts arriving at the same time. I expect to have a quiet morning, as usual, then for things to get more interesting late in the afternoon. Lots of big machines working here now. They set up a retardant tank here yesterday that they will be able to fill from. They are felling lots of trees above the ranch and placing hoses and hand lines. Everyone is safe. Animals are safe. I'm off to move the cows, who don't care at all about any of this.

Decreased fire activity the past couple of days but the smoke is pretty awful. That means low wind though, so we'll take it. Expecting increased fire activity starting today with some shifting conditions including winds, which will likely get this fire moving through the Spray Creek drainage basin. BCWFS crews busted a move yesterday and got a nice fire break / access road in. Will update more later today if I have time.

Sorry I missed personal updates yesterday — it was a very busy day. Please note that all the data on this dashboard updates at 6am and 6pm daily regardless of whether I write a personal update or add new photos. I finally realized that the Bradley Creek fire in Vernon could impact some SSMPA infrastructure, so I have added that location to the dashboard. You can download the KMZ file for all these fires and locations by clicking "3D map" in the "Actively tracking" section of the report. I am focused on the Riley Creek fire because that's where I am. With the evacuation order lifted, the family was able to return to the ranch. Staff have not returned. We are anticipating increased fire activity in the coming days so I won't be surprised if we go back on order. The hostility the crews on this fire are taking is hard to watch. It's the same thing we do to healthcare workers. Everyone's an expert, everyone's entitled to what they want, where they want it, when they want it — except wildfire comes with conspiracy theorists on top. I think part of it is that everyone wants a piece of the action. These are high-stress, exciting situations. How does the guy at home on the couch insert himself into the drama? By hating on the people actually out there doing the job, evidently. They're not perfect. As one of them said yesterday, they're human too. But if I had to bet, my money's on the guy with thirty years of experience, an education and a team of professionals behind him — not on Walter in Ladysmith with a grudge and a Facebook account. On more practical matters, the fire has moved into the Spray Creek basin now. We had 5 helicopters on it all day yesterday, starting at 9:30 which was the earliest start to date. We got structure protection on the barn. Hoping to get some on the hay shed today. There are now 12 properties depending on the ranch's water system for structure protection. Tristan was busy helping BCWFS plan a line along the back of the ranch. Aubyn and I were packing orders all day, so ranch chores didn't get started until around 5:30 — making for another late night. Today we absolutely have to prioritize getting the ranch prepared. We are expecting things to get spicy tomorrow. We need to be ready to switch to putting out spot fires.

Long day today with a little bit of everything except rain, of course. See the photos below for how things progressed from 5am to 11pm. I'm writing this at 11:21 and for the first time I'm starting to see pretty regular flames from the ridge between Cat Creek and Spray Creek. Tristan and I just got back from a drive a little ways south on Texas Creek to get a better look into the Spray Creek drainage, and could definitely see more activity from there. But pretty much as soon as we got back and decided we had done enough for today and should go to bed, she got spicy — so I've been hanging out outside watching the show. Hopefully the wind doesn't pick up tonight. There sure were a lot of big pieces of burned up trees on the field this morning. BCWFS told us this morning that it has moved into a pine beetle kill area and is burning at a rate of about 19 metres a minute, as opposed to the usual 3-5 metres a minute. Yeeeeee! But it's really not that bad. I know a lot of people are pretty worried, and I might feel more anxious too if I had a different view, but so far it's behaving pretty well and staying up high. Lots of resources being thrown at this fire, which has grown to at least 1150 ha now. We had at least 4 helicopters on it today and they started early, at 10am. Ground and structure protection crews are all working really hard to help keep things relatively under control. They have all been really great to deal with, and their great attitudes, cooperation and hard work are greatly appreciated. We were surprised to come off evacuation order tonight and back to alert. We're having a quieter couple of days but things look like they are going to ramp back up on Wednesday. Ok, I'm too tired to think straight but wanted to jot a few notes down and get some photos up tonight for the 6am briefing. I have a fantasy of sleeping in past 6. It could happen. It never does, but it could. Hopefully I'll have a more coherent note for you later today.

It was actually a pretty nice, clear day most of the day today but, as usual, fire activity started cranking up in the afternoon. Check out the progression from 2:00 to 5:30 today in the photos below. Tristan made some good progress on the water line from the Cat Creek intake which is running down to the reserve. I spent most of the day just doing ranch chores and fuels reduction work. Aubyn and the kids are evacuating to Lillooet. She should be able to come back with a temporary access pass to milk the cow and bring us supplies. Smoke is thick now and smells stronger and stings the eyes, so it must be burning through something different today. I just took a drive down past Riley Creek so there are some different views in this set of photos than usual — we can't actually see too much from the ranch at this point. According to BCWFS it is continuing to burn in very steep, rocky terrain, making ground crews impossible. It is progressing south and southeast at high elevation. Helicopters continued to bucket today and are building guard and hand falling. Structure protection is still on site setting up water delivery systems in the community and protecting hydro lines. Strong, gusty winds are producing aggressive fire behaviour, as you might expect. Gusts are expected up to 80 km/hr late afternoon. We did get 7.5 drops of rain earlier so that was exciting. Not expecting any more, although thunderstorms are a possibility.

Yesterday the fire continued to progress slowly south and southeast, generally staying up high on the mountains. Rank 2 fire behaviour with pockets of Rank 3 have been observed by the fire crews on the southern flank. I was able to see flames high on the ridge from the ranch last night. We were issued with an evacuation order at 7:30 last night. A cold front is moving into the area today which is expected to strengthen winds and increase fire behaviour. At 4am this morning things seem to have settled down, but this is usual fire behaviour and we expect it to ramp back up today. Aubyn and the kids plan to evacuate. Tristan and I will stay. I do not feel like we are in any immediate danger and there is a lot to do here. Wind has started picking up as of 5am.

It was very smoky this morning but it cleared up nicely this afternoon. The fire has been busier than it looks, with some concerning hot spots — but you really can't take this FIRMS data as gospel. Read the note at the bottom of this briefing for more on that. Lots of structure protection underway today. We have the fancy West Van structure protection crew here. Must be a whole different world for these guys! The constant drone of helicopters is the soundtrack of life here from late morning to early evening. If needed they can bring in a bigger chopper that can bucket at night — the tank has lights for that. Neato! The evacuation alert was expanded to include a few more properties south of the ranch. Given the behaviour this fire is exhibiting, I won't be surprised if we are moved to order soon. Nothing here is currently an emergency. Just plugging away, hoping for the best and preparing for the worst, like so many people around the world in this situation right now.

Fire activity ramped up quite a bit yesterday afternoon but settled down overnight as it usually does. It did cover some ground and seems to have moved through the Towinock Creek (known locally as Cat Creek) basin. We had a big plume immediately behind the ranch yesterday afternoon/evening but only saw fire activity further away on the far side of the Cat Creek ridge early this morning (around 4:30am). Was a busy day today getting a large water tank situated in the Spray Creek field and connected to the ranch's irrigation system for the helicopters to fill from. There are 3 helicopters actioning this fire including 2 Bell 212s which can carry about 325 gallons of water and an AStar B3 which can carry about 125 gallons. Filling up at the ranch is a big improvement as it is much safer and allows them to cycle a lot faster. A structure protection team from Coquitlam is on site setting up sprinklers on buildings and we were able to get a better setup for getting water down to the reserve today along with a crew from First Nations' Emergency Services Society. Thankfully, it is less windy today but we did have a fairly long crossover window. There was a significant debris shower this afternoon with burned material falling. Spot fires from falling embers or burning debris falling down steep slopes remains the biggest concern, rather than concern that the fire will come down from the mountains. So far it is giving us every indication that it wants to stay up there. It has been consistently smoky all day today with cooler temperatures and less wind. Looks like we are in for more high temperatures and the wind is returning for the next week or so with very little to no precipitation in the forecast. Evening update: no plume directly behind the ranch tonight, unlike last night. The activity is on the far side of the Cat Creek ridge — the same place we saw flames at 4:30 this morning. Nothing significant south of it. The activity closer to Spray Creek seems to have simmered down. Bear in mind I have no visibility of the actual fire from down here. I can only see smoke.

Yesterday was a busy day with visits from BCWFS structure protection, First Nations' Emergency Services Society and a wildfire specialist from Delta Water Products. Tristan was able to provide some really valuable information and maps and we got a new manifold installed on the Spray Creek intake to make it easier for structure protection crews to get water down to the reserve. The fire gets more active in the afternoon and by 5:30 last night it had made a big jump and was shooting up a big plume right behind the ranch which seemed to be in the near side of the cat creek (towinock creek) drainage. The fire laid down over night but flames were visible on the far side of the cat creek basin at 4:30am this morning. We are expecting things to heat up again with increased activity this afternoon as we have a long period of crossover. BCWFS is probably dropping a 40 foot sea can that we can fill with water and the choppers can bucket out of into the Spray Creek field today. This will significantly reduce the turn around time for the choppers and reduce pressure on the small lake they have been filling from which is getting pretty low.