A change in the usual policy from the BC Wildfire Service at the Sparks Lake Fire and the Tremont Creek Fire near Kamloops, even though they are no longer burning out of control.

“I have received notice from the Kamloops Fire Centre that they’ve actually decided that we should maintain those as fires of note for a little bit longer as these are sensitive,” Fire Information Officer Greg Jonuk told NL News.

“So, people will still be able to consult the website for information as the two fires have been very sensitive to people folks over a long period time.”

He says the Wildfire Service usually stops considering wildfires of note as such, once their status is changed to being held.

“We take it out of that wildfire of note status and put our resources elsewhere,” he said.

As of publishing, there were 18 wildfires of note in British Columbia, 12 of which were in the Kamloops Fire Centre.

The Sparks Lake Fire is about 890 square kilometres in size, while the Tremont Creek Fire is about 635 square kilometres in size. As of publishing, there are no evacuation orders in place for either fire, though there are still some evacuation alerts.

“We’re moving our resources from the northwest to the northeast [of the Sparks Lake Fire],” Jonuk said yesterday. “There’s still a little bit of demobilization of structural protection gear that is required on the northwest flank, but that should be wrapping up very shortly and those folks will be transferred over to that other area.”

“[As for Tremont Creek], I would say the area of concern is the far east component of the fire between Duffy Lake and Dairy Lake, but our crews are also working in various locations on the northern flank as well.”

The Sparks Lake Fire has been burning since June 28, while the Tremont Creek Fire has been burning since July 12.

As of 7 p.m. Thursday, August 26, the government says there were 238 active fires in the province, which has burned 864,473 hectares of land, or 8,644 square kilometres.

Of that total, 77 active fires were in the Kamloops Fire Centre followed by 58 in the Southeast, 53 in Prince George, 26 in the Cariboo, 19 in the Coastal, and five in the Northwest.

There are 35 active evacuation orders in effect across B.C. impacting 3,476 properties (down by 46 orders impacting 3,745 properties from Wednesday) with 83 active evacuation alerts impacting 1,699 properties (down from 90 alerts impacting 7,957 properties).

For the latest on evacuation orders and alerts in the TNRD, go here. For the latest on the wildfire situation in the province, go here.