A B.C. snowmobile club is providing firefighters tackling an out-of-control wildfire near the Coquihalla Highway (Highway 5) with invaluable local knowledge.
The Mine Creek wildfire, burning between Hope and Merritt along the critical highway that connects the Lower Mainland with the B.C. Interior, covered an area of 30 square kilometres as of Sunday morning.
It had jumped the highway on Wednesday amid record-high temperatures in B.C., leading to a two-day closure of the road and evacuation orders and alerts for properties along the Coquihalla.
As firefighters continue to tackle the blaze, they are getting help from the local Merritt Snowmobile Club.
Simon Rizzardo, the club's vice-president, told CBC News that they've given firefighters access to the club's webcams and taken them on tours, pointing out cabins in need of protection and advising them on which trails to use.
"A lot of these structure protection guys are from out of town and they may not know the backcountry like we do, being local," he said.
"We see it summertime and wintertime, so we kind of know all the shortcuts and direct ways to get to our structures," he added. "And yeah, we just want to make sure our cabins get protected."
Rizzardo said that firefighters may have access to online mapping tools that show them which forest roads to use, but he says local snowmobilers often know which ones are overgrown or in disrepair, adding that the club's webcams have been useful too.
"Capturing some of the the actual footage of the fire rolling across the hills at nighttime definitely helps the fire crews," Rizzardo said.
The snowmobiler said that he wanted to give firefighters the best leg up that he could.
"It's definitely like going into a foreign country," he said. "If you've never been to that area, and you got to go figure it out for yourself where the best burgers are, right? Why not get a local to tell you, 'Hey, this is the best place to go for a burger?'"
In an online update, the B.C. Wildfire Service said that Sunday was the start of a helpful weather downturn for those tackling the Mine Creek blaze.
It said that lower temperatures and higher humidity were helping decrease fire behaviour — but that forecasted thunderstorms could prove to be a wildcard.
"Thunderstorms are a safety consideration for our crews as gusty, erratic winds can result in increased fire behaviour and heavy downpours, which can make highways and back roads wet and slippery," the update read.
A number of severe thunderstorm watches were in effect in B.C. on Sunday afternoon, including for the Okanagan, Nicola, South Thompson and northern Fraser Canyon regions.
Amanda Graves, a B.C. Wildfire Service information officer, said Sunday that crews were seeing variable amounts of rain coming in, and smoke cover was starting to lift in areas across the province.
"That said, aerial operations are continuing to be challenged in some areas where the smoke remains thick, and it's limiting visibility," she said.
"As we move through tonight, the risk of lightning remains in the Southeast Fire Centre, parts of the Kamloops Fire Centre and in the southeast Cariboo Fire Centre."