B.C.'s Burns Bog Fire 50 Per Cent Contained, Industrial Park Evacuation Ends

DELTA, B.C. — An evacuation order has been lifted and business has resumed in an industrial park in Delta, B.C., as crews gain the upper hand on a nearby wildfire.

 

The 78-hectare fire in Burns Bog, south of Vancouver, is estimated to be about half contained, and Delta fire Chief Dan Copeland hopes roughly eighty firefighters will have it fully contained sometime today.

 

Highway 17, which runs along one flank of the bog, remains closed as first responders use it to get to the still-smouldering fire, which broke out on Sunday and was fanned by strong winds.

 

Flames that jumped a road at the height of the blaze had prompted the evacuation of Tilbury Industrial Park, which affected nearly two dozen businesses, including a lumber mill, but firefighters were able to save all the properties. 

 

Cooler weather on Monday and showers early this morning helped crews make headway.

 

A further update on progress is to be provided later today as officials continue to try to pinpoint the fire's cause.

 

Eliza Olson, founder of the Burns Bog Conservation Society, said about 90 per cent of the peat bog is expected to regenerate in  coming years, but it could take a century before the entire area recovers.

 

Olson estimated the 30-square-kilometre nature reserve in Delta is believed to be the largest undeveloped urban wilderness area in North America.

 

 

"That's one of the beauties of having Burns Bog here in the water table," she said in an interview Monday.

 

"Because it's at the mouth of the Fraser River, it's an estuary-raised bog. You normally don't find a raised bog this far south."

 

Burns Bog is one of North America's largest peat bogs and flames can sink under the dry peat, where they burn out of sight.

 

But fire officials have said ground conditions and a quick response from firefighters kept the flames from burrowing beneath the peat, where the fire would have the potential to burn for weeks.

 

Delta police have said it could take at least a week to extinguish the blaze.

 

Mayor Lois Jackson called the fire a "major emergency" and said the community remains under provincial emergency status.

 

She said Metro Vancouver was monitoring air quality as smoke had drifted into Vancouver, but conditions had improved since Sunday and no general advisory was issued.

 

Delta plans to consult with Metro Vancouver's Burns Bog scientific advisory panel for guidance in the recovery of the nature reserve, Jackson said.

 

"It's a very special area and we're working very hard to bring it back to what it was, if we can."

 

Olson said the bog's acidic, peat-forming ecosystem includes rare plants, such as cloudberries, called bakeapples in Newfoundland and Labrador, and velvet-leafed blueberries, along with two species of dragonflies among its diverse inspect species.