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Elephant Hill wildfire now 100 per cent contained

The fire is described by the BC Wildfire Service as under control.
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Water bombers from Quebec skimmed over the tree tops after scooping up water from Green Lake on Sept. 30. Five planes dropped water on the northeastern ridges of Jim and Nolan lakes as the Elephant Hill fire crept within a kilometre of the South Green Lake community. Photo: Ken Alexander.

After 83 days burning, the Elephant Hill fire is under control.

As of the morning of Sept. 27, the fire was listed as 100 per cent contained on the BC Wildfire Service’s website, now defined as “under control.”

“Under control means there has been enough suppression activity on the fire to mean that we do not expect any continued growth,” explained fire information officer Jody Lucius.

“That is a testament to the hard work the firefighters have done over the course of the summer and the cooler, wetter weather that we have been getting on the fire over the last little while.”

While there are still crews working on the fire—54 firefighters, one helicopter and eight pieces of heavy equipment—Lucius says that will diminish in the coming days as work does wrap up.

However, under control does not mean the fire is out, she added.

“People in the area around the Elephant Hill wildfire will continue to see smoke and potentially flame for the coming period. It could be up to a couple months depending on the weather,” she said.

“Certainly as long as that smoke and flame is within the perimeter of the fire then it will be allowed to just burn itself out. If those smokes are outside of the perimeter or threatening any structures or values, however, we will send crews to work on that.”

For a fire that began on July 6, Lucius says crews are happy to have achieved the ‘under control’ status.

“It is a pretty significant status change. We have been working towards containment, of course, all summer and over the last few weeks in particular we’ve seen that number grow quite substantially.

“There’s been a lot of firefighters and a lot of crews and a lot of support staff out there all summer and so it’s really culminating in this as the result of a lot of hard work.”