A late-night brush fire on the weekend along the Dallas Road waterfront spread due to “tinder-dry conditions” and took two and a half hours to fully extinguish, the Victoria Fire Department says.
The glow from the fire early Sunday could be seen over a kilometre away, the department said in a Facebook post. The fire, which burned an area about 23 metres by 60 metres, could have spread to nearby Beacon Hill Park, the post said.
Acting Battalion Chief Brent Hoeppner said the grassy areas along Dallas Road are vulnerable this time of year.
He said the department responded to six grass and beach fires in the 48 hours from Friday morning until Sunday morning, followed by a brush fire Sunday night at Cedar Hill Road and Hillside Avenue and at least two more fires on Monday.
Hoeppner said the public needs to be vigilant at this time of year. “These are our parks and our grassways.”
Beach fires and all open burning are banned in Victoria at all times, he said.
The fire danger is extreme in all parts of Vancouver Island, said Coastal Fire Centre information officer Nick Donnelly, but there have been no recent lightning-caused fires, as other parts of the province have seen.
“We’ve been relatively spared, relative to the rest of the province, in the last few days,” he said.
There were five fires on the Island as of Monday afternoon, with four deemed to be under control and one classified as being held.
The latter is the Newcastle fire near Sayward that started in late May and is holding steady at 230 hectares.
Those under control include the 229-hectare Cameron Bluffs fire, which caused the closure of a stretch of Highway 4 for several days last month, although the road has since reopened to single-lane alternating traffic.
“We’re going to continue monitoring it and see if there are any hot spots that rise up,” Donnelly said.
Also deemed under control is a 16.6-hectare fire in the Klanawa Valley near Nitinat and two fires that are less than half a hectare in size — one west of Sooke near Otter Point and one northwest of Campbell River.
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