KAMLOOPS THIS WEEK TUESDAY
LOCAL NEWS
30 CENTS
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AUGUST 22, 2017 | Volume 30 No. 100
TODAY’S WEATHER
Should be sunny High 34 C, Low 14 C
PRIDE WEEKEND
SMALL BUSINESS HELP COMING
KTW was there for all of Sunday’s festivities
Province promises grants for small companies impacted financially by wildfires
NEWS/A5
BUSINESS/A13
Record-setting fire season passes grim milestone More than 1 million hectares of B.C. burned SEAN BRADY STAFF REPORTER sbrady@kamloopsthisweek.com
SEAN BRADY/KTW
GOODNIGHT SUN
cOAcH ✹ D&g ✹ BEBE
with the gusty winds the region saw on Friday. On Sunday, the wildfire service reported much of the fire had received rain. That fire’s force is even bigger, with 545 firefighters, 12 helicopters and 109 pieces of heavy equipment. A cold front is expected Wednesday or Thursday, and Skrepnek said he isn’t sure whether it will bring rain. “We could see these fires flare up if we get a relatively dry cold front with wind, and potentially lightning, but it could also bring showers with it,” he said. Province-wide, there are now 135 wildfires burning, with seven new fires started Sunday. The estimated costs for the B.C. Wildfire Service now total $351 million since April 1. Despite the record number of hectares burned, in terms of the number of fires, B.C. is still well below its 10-year average of 1,800, with 1,064 this season.
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Unlike the strip across the continent stretching from Oregon to South Carolina, Kamloops didn’t quite get a total solar eclipse — but there was still plenty to see, and many to see it. Thompson Rivers University was busy on Monday morning just after the start of the solar eclipse at 9:30 a.m. At its peak at 10:25 a.m., the moon had blocked out approximately 80 per cent of the sun. People from campus and the community gathered to take the event in through special eclipse glasses or with pinhole cameras — some made with cereal boxes. The next eclipse isn’t until 2024 and, for that one, only eastern Canada will get to see it. In 2044, however, a total eclipse will sweep across northern B.C. For more photos from TRU on Monday, go online to kamloopsthisweek.com.
This year’s record-setting wildfire season has hit another milestone — the million-hectare mark. The B.C. Wildfire Service reported Monday that 1,021,674 hectares have burned throughout the province. Much of that area comes from what the wildfire service is now calling the Plateau fire, which is the combined Chezacut, Tautri, Bishop’s Bluff, Baezaeko, Wentworth Creek and Arc Mountain fires, plus others. The blaze makes up 467,461 hectares of B.C.’s million scorched — which chief fire information officer Kevin Skrepnek suspects is the largest in the province’s recorded history. Up against that fire are two different teams — one to the north and one to the south — a combined force of 400 firefighters, 25 helicopters and 73 pieces of heavy equipment. Closer to Kamloops, crews battling the Elephant Hill wildfire burning north of Cache Creek got some help from the weather and managed to hold the fire within its perimeter over the weekend, even
An evacuation order for properties in the Loon Lake area was rescinded over the weekend. NEWS/A4