The district of Cherry Creek is nestled in the northern corner of the Alberni Valley, surrounded by dense forests and the Beaufort Mountain Range. With the increasing dangers of wildland fires in British Columbia many of our homes are at a high risk of encountering an interface wild fire.
The year 2018 was an especially bad year for forest fires in the Alberni Valley. We experienced a total of 3 large fires surrounding the valley on the North, North-East and East sides. The Beaufort Range Fire burned as close to half a kilometre to our fire protection boundary and nearest properties.
2018 Beaufort Range Fire
2am August 8, 2018 The Cherry Creek Fire Department was paged out for “Ash falling in the area.” As members responded to the fire hall it was evident there was an impending forest fire cresting the ridge located above Cherry Creek.
The BC Wildfire Service dispatched CCFD to assist wildland crews. What followed was an intense 5 day exercise of controlling the spread of the fire and the elimination of remaining hot spots.
BCWS Callouts
Due to the increasing intensity and frequency of wildfires in British Columbia, BC Wildfire Service has the ability to call additional resources from different fire departments in the province. CCFD has been contracted by BCWS numerous times since 2017 for wildland fire operations. Below is a Gallery of our service from those deployments.
