After 10 days of dramatic expansion, the Mount Underwood wildfire has now been deemed as ‘being held’ by the BC Wildfire Service (BCWS).
This means the blaze is not expected to expand any further past the fire’s perimeter, given current weather conditions and fuel resources.
The wildfire was discovered on August 11th, and grew quickly to be just under 3,700 hectares in size, making it Vancouver Island’s second largest fire in recorded history.
As of Thursday, August 21st, the Mount Underwood wildfire has shrunk marginally to be 3,548 hectares in size.
The BCWS response team for this wildfire consists of an incident management team, 159 firefighting personnel, seven helicopters and 21 pieces of heavy equipment.
Since the blaze has been brought under control and has run out of fuel within the burn zone, the Cowichan Valley Regional District has rescinded its evacuation order.
Alberni-Clayoquot Regional District’s evacuation order remains in effect, though some areas remain under an evacuation alert.
Additionally, the Tseshaht First Nation and the City of Port Alberni have rescinded their evacuation alerts.
See the map below for details on where is currently under evacuation order/alert:
To see active evacuation orders/alerts, click here.
Currently, people are still being asked to avoid the Bamfield and Post Alberni areas, unless they are a resident.
The Franklin River Road between Port Alberni and Bamfield remains closed, as the wildfire has fully enveloped a section of the corridor.
However, BCWS says there is no risk to the Bamfield to Youbou road.
Those looking for up-to-date road closure information can find resources through DriveBC.
As for power outages, BC Hydro is still working on returning power to Bamfield and its surrounding communities who have been without electricity since August 12th.
BC Hydro estimates that around 528 customers have been, and continue to be impacted by this outage.
No estimation has been given by BC Hydro for when this matter will be resolved, but their outages webpage indicates crews are on-site.
As of this publication, air quality should not be a concern to those around Mount Underwood. Environment Canada lifted their air quality warning in the region as of Monday, August 18th.
There are currently only two other active wildfires on Vancouver Island, the Nahmint Mountain wildfire and the Wesley Ridge wildfire. Both of these fires have been deemed as ‘under control’ by BCWS.
As of this publication, there are 61 active wildfires throughout BC.
