The summer of 2018 was one of the hottest ever recorded in B.C. and Friday, July 27 is a day that will live long in the memory of Richmond’s fire department.
Early morning reports of smoke coming out of the peat woodland at the DND Lands, near Westminster Highway and Shell Road, quickly developed into a wildfire.
It became one of the biggest fires ever in Richmond, ravaging 12.3 hectares of the 55-hectare forested parcel confined by No. 4 and Shell roads, Alderbridge Way and Westminster Highway.
Scores of fire trucks and firefighters raced to the scene to tackle the blaze which, later that evening, had grown to eight hectares in size.
Four fixed-winged airplanes, provided by BC Wildfire Services, and a chopper were also called in to try and douse the fire.
The DND also provided more than a dozen personnel to help combat the blaze and Richmond Fire-Rescue brought in an excavator to create a path to the fire, which was largely inaccessible, with it being about 1,000 feet into the thick, peat woodland.
Firefighters’ task to extinguish the blaze, which had grown to 12 hectares by the end of the weekend, was thwarted by the fact that, when you douse a peat bog fire on the surface, the flames go down into the peat and it pops up somewhere else.
Firefighters had to dig out some of the peat in order to get to all of the fire source.
Experts warned it could burn underground for years.
The cause is still unknown.
