The massive Sparks Lake wildfire northwest of Kamloops was “less active” yesterday, according to the BC Wildfire Service.

It is still estimated to be over 40,000 hectares in size, and burning out of control northwest of Kamloops.

Fire Information Officer, Shannon Street, says there was no real growth overnight after some aggressive behaviour at the site on Saturday.

“So with the wind that we had on Saturday there was a bit of increased fire behaviour and there a little bit of concern that it might breach the guard but as far as we are aware, its still holding,” she said. “There was air tanker action I believe on Saturday evening and then overall yesterday, there was less fire activity.”

The Sparks Lake Fire is the largest in the province, and its

Street says there were some concerns about increased fire activity on Saturday with crews concerned that fire might breach its guard in places.

“Crews are continuing to work on guard around the southern tip of the fire,” Street added. “We’re also working with heavy equipment to make sure that the control lines are all in place and they’re hoping to get some planned ignitions down in the Mount Uren area, over the next day or two, kind of depending on conditions out there.”

“Nothing is guaranteed about when that will happen, but we have some plans in place for that. Fire activity did pick up in the Frog Lake area on the east flank but control lines are currently holding as a result of active fire suppression efforts by crews.”

In all, 170 properties in the TNRD are on evacuation order, while evacuation alerts are in place for another 704 properties. The Skeetchestn Indian Band also issued evacuation orders on July 1.

According to the BC Wildfire Service, 128 firefighters are battling the Sparks Lake blaze along with 10 helicopters and 42 pieces of heavy equipment. Those crews are also battling another 132 hectare fire about 8 km northeast of Criss Creek (46 km northwest of Kamloops), along with five other nearby fires in the Cariboo Fire Centre.

“These additional six fires are not currently threatening structures,” Street said. “We are monitoring these closely and resourcing them with personnel and helicopter bucketing as required.”

The Sparks Lake Fire broke out on Monday, June 28, and its suspected to be human-caused.

For more on the Sparks Lake wildfire, go here.